


Lovely

by PrismaticMilk



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Fluff and Angst, Harry Potter and Orion Black are Best Friends, Harry Potter is Bad at Feelings, Harry Potter is a Little Shit, M/M, Misguided Albus Dumbledore, Morally Grey Harry Potter, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Possessive Tom Riddle, Reincarnation, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Unrequited Love, Young Tom Riddle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:34:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23556121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrismaticMilk/pseuds/PrismaticMilk
Summary: Given a chance to be alive again, Holly Potter doesn't think twice before saying yes.Except, she isn't Holly Potter anymore, she's Holly Nikolaev, and she has until the day she turns eighteen to make Tom Riddle fall in love with her before the thing that brought her back to life claims her as its forever.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter/Voldemort
Comments: 34
Kudos: 398





	1. Chapter 1

Holly dreamed.

The dark empyrean could be her eyelids, she mused, and she'd be able to sleep with her eyes wide open. She was in the void, floating, waiting, yearning. She wanted to see, to feel, to breathe, to be.

She wasn't dead, no, but she wasn't alive. She was trapped, like a feral animal in the dark, stuck in limbo, starving but not hungry.

But she dreamed.

It was lovely, like a white rose in a field of red, tangible to only her. She was alive, once, able to exist amongst the color and sun, a drop blood in a sea of flesh. She remembered the taste of chocolate, a ratty cupboard, and her mother's voice, but nothing else.

Still, she wanted more, she wanted to be alive.

The darkness, it was cold, leaving her numb and searching for warmth, alone and without anyone to keep her company, and fuck, she was _cold._

**Hello.** Holly raised her head and stared into the dark misery, letting the darkness cling to her flesh as if it was nothing more than a parasite. Fear was foreign to her, but it was there, underneath her skin and without clemency. She hated it.

She was supposed to be alone, but this _thing_ was in her misery, hers. It didn't belong, not with her, never with her. _Get out,_ she wanted to growl, but she couldn't, not when her lips were sewn shut with twine. Not when she didn't have a tongue.

**Do not be a fool, I wish to help.**

No, no, _no._ It was lying, it thought her stupid, but it didn't stop the hope from building around her like a great hungry serpent. She was alone, intangible to everything and nothing, like a phantom, there but nowhere. Holly scoured her mind; she couldn't, she wouldn't, she didn't _need_ hope.

But, she hated it. Hated the lingering darkness that confines her. Hated the horrible cold. Hated the misery that filled her prison. She hated it, but it was familiar and the closest thing to safety that she understood.

**I fathom why I am even bothering to help you,** it hissed lowly, curling around the base of her throat. **You are pathetic.**

Holly wanted to laugh something ugly, but she couldn't, it was right. She was pathetic and a little messed up, her pieces broken and scattered, but she was there. She was okay, except, she wasn't.

**Good girl,** it purred, **know your place, respect me, and you will be rewarded. You want to be alive again, do you not?**

Holly could feel hands, _hands,_ touch her, squeeze her, card through her hair and trace her lips. She couldn't see the hands; she couldn't see anything but black. But, she could feel it, and it terrified her.

Alive. The word yawned open in her sternum, bringing her warmth, bringing her hope. The thing, whatever it was, could give her life. _Yes,_ she wanted to scream, sinking to her knees and further into the darkness. _Yes, yes, yes._

She wanted it; she wanted to be alive.

**Perfect.**

Holly didn't know pain could be so wonderful.

**-X-**

Fania dared to wear her heart on her sleeve, the green and yellow of melancholy bleeding from her damask cheeks. She was on her knees, holding her little girl's small hand, a prayer on her lips. Her feet were swollen, her hair was unwashed, and she hadn't slept in a proper bed in days.

Fania loved her little girl very much — even more than she loved herself. She walked with the universe on her shoulders and made it look like a pair of wings, and yet, she was scared. Her little girl, her everything, was in a coma, her body impossibly small underneath her pink comforter.

She couldn't see her baby's green eyes, couldn't see her smile, but she could see her little chest rise and fall. It wasn't enough, not nearly, but it was something to rely on, some solace, something to gnaw and chew at as her child laid motionless.

Ilya was in the doorway, a cigarette sitting at the bud of his lips and between his teeth as he dragged out the last smoke. He gripped his cane, his knuckles white. He loved, but he couldn't love enough. His daughter was dying, and he blamed himself.

Fania was barely holding herself together, the strings of her resolve waning as she clung to Holly. Ilya rubbed the butt of his fag to a pulp, flicking it into the ash tray, his eyes never leaving his wife's crumbled form. He knew his wife, knew her better than she knew herself, and he knew she'd never let go.

Bending down, Ilya coaxed her into his arms, resting his forehead on her shoulder. "You're okay," he said, barely above a whisper. "Holly's okay."

A watery smile curled at the tip of Fania's lips, coloured with vermeil and brimming with exhaustion. "I want her to wake up," she babbled, something akin to hysteria bleeding into her tone. "Why won't she wake up?"

"She is ill; she needs sleep."

Fania particularly seethed. "For seven months?"

Seven months ago, her little girl wanted to play in the rain, and seven months ago, her little girl collapsed in a seizure, tongue split and eyes wide, in the rain. The doctors were worthless, as were the nurses. They couldn't even begin to figure out what was wrong.

"Doctor said—"

"That _doctor_ is a useless _twit!_ He checked her temperature, drew some blood, and pulled shit out of his ass to make up for something he didn't even know!" she snapped, and then shut her mouth, frowning. She swiveled, straining her neck to look at him. "And you know, I'm right, don't expect me to apologize."

Ilya smirked. "Of course, I would die if I did."

With a roll of her eyes, Fania relaxed, if only a little. "Yes, you would," she scoffed, smiling weakly. She looked at him again, then, really looked, and something broke inside of her. "I missed you."

"Why?" he asked, knitting his brows. He never left her side, even for a smoke, he kept his eyes on her. He couldn't risk her getting sick too. He didn't know if he could be strong enough for her. "I was here, no?"

"Yeah, yes, but I—" Fania swallowed, falling back on her words. "We don't talk, Ilya. Not anymore, not like we used to. We sit on those chairs, and we wait. It's pathetic, and I miss you."

Ilya surged forward, their foreheads hitting, but he didn't stop, pressing his lips against hers. "I missed you too."

And Fania _grinned,_ so widely and so beautiful, rubbing her forehead, and…

She froze, her throat drying up.

In her hands, Holly twitched.

**-X-**

_You foul, loathsome—_

**Evil little cockroach?** It supplied, the thing curled in the corner of the bathroom. It was a nasty little thing with whale-like tallow drawn across its mandibles; beady black eyes flung so wide you could see every single vein. Like a maggot, it squirmed, skulking in the umbrae.

Holly dared to take her shoe and squash it like a bug. She was three and learning how to potty train, and she hated it. It was beyond demeaning, but where her mind was developed, her body wasn't. _This is your fault._

It snorted. Y **ou wanted to be alive, girly. I gave you your wish, not my fault you thought you'd end up in your old body.**

_I hate you._ Holly pulled up her frilly, cotton dress, glaring at the horrid thing. _You're enjoying this, aren't you?_

**A little.**

Four months ago, Holly Potter was dead; until she wasn't. She could feel, she could see, she could breathe, and she could _be._ It was intoxicating, like a drug, but also like a drug, it was wrong. She could see herself, in the mirror above the hospital bed, and while it _looked_ like her, it wasn't her that stared back.

It scared her.

The little girl, Holly Nikolaev, from what the thing told her, was dead — been dead for months. She wasn't stealing her body, not really, but still, the thought unnerved her. She was alive, and despite knowing she resided inside of something that once breathed without her, it excited her. She was alive.

Except, she was a bloody child, and where her mind was developed, her body wasn't.

She couldn't remember her past life, not like she wanted to, but she knew she wasn't an evil megalomaniac. She didn't deserve this; she didn't. She was a good girl. The thing, however, only snickered at her expense, taking utmost delight in her debasement. Holly vowed she'd find a way to kill it, whether by her shoe or her own hands.

**I want to make a wager.** The thing was still in the corner, deep-set eyes peering into her soul, and she huffed.

_Don't care._

**Pity.** Holly scowled at it, dropping her dress, and headed to the sink. She stumbled around on her tippy-toes, trying to reach the faucet. **I suppose you wouldn't like to remember who you are, then? That's much too bad.**

Holly choked. _What?_

**Eloquently put, princess, except you don't care, remember?**

_I swear to god,_ she snarled, sinking to her knees. She grabbed at the thing, squeezing its fat body in her tiny hands — she hoped it'd pop open like a blood vessel. _It's like you want me to kill you._

**What can I say?** The thing shimmied out of her grip, dropping onto her lap. It looked almost smug despite not having a proper face. **It brings flavor to our relationship.**

Holly gagged, scandalized, before shoving it off her lap and leaping to her feet. If only she could find a way to kill it or maim it or both. She hated it so much. _You're sick._

It chuckled darkly. **Now, now, that's not very nice, no need to get your diapers in a twist. With that type of attitude, I should punish you.**

_Well,_ she huffed sardonically, _since we're in such a_ loving _relationship, why don't we skip the foreplay, and you tell me who I am?_

**And why, pray tell, should I do that?**

Holly smirked, tugging at the ribbons on her dress in faux coyness. _Because you love me, of course._

**Of course,** it purred darkly, and she winced in disgust as it curled around her ankle. **How silly of me to forget.**

**Except,** and Holly cried as the grip on her ankle tightened sharply, knocking her to her knees. She scratched at the thing violently, her tiny hands doing nothing as she balled into herself. **What have you ever done for me, my love?**

There was a ripping, popping sound suddenly as her ligament tore, and the quiet breaking of a stick as her bone burst from the back of her ankle. Holly bit the back of her hand to keep herself from screaming, powerless to look away from the piece of bone that stuck out her awkwardly, bits of mangled flesh dangling precariously from it.

Holly seethed, something akin to venom on her tongue. "You bastard!" she hissed hysterically, eyes erratic. "Gerroff me, _get the fuck off me!"_

**Beg, then.** The thing was moving up her leg, but Holly didn't care. She wasn't about to beg, she wasn't a dog, she didn't just roll over at the drop of a dime and take it. **Beg, and I won't break every bone in your delightfully tiny body.**

_I'm no dog,_ she wanted to scream, but she knew her parents would hear, and she couldn't have that. _I will never beg, not to you, not to anyone!_

It sighed. **Is that so?**

_You can't make me._

**So, you wouldn't mind if I had a little fun with your parents? I'm sure they'll beg for me.**

Her eyes widened in horror. "No!"

There was a knock at the door, then. "Holly, honey," her mother's voice called out, muffled. "I heard yelling, did you fall into the toilet again?"

Holly crimsoned. "M'okay, Mama!"

"Are you sure? I can come in —"

"No!" Holly cried out, in pain or necessity, she couldn't tell. "I can do it myself!"

"Oh, well, if you're sure." And she left.

The thing laughed suddenly, something dark and nasty, mandibles chattering like a couple of monkeys. It was wrapped around her thigh, squeezing teasingly at her flesh. **How cute.**

Holly snarled at it. _Spare me._

**You amuse me, girly.** The thing was staring at her, unblinking. **How about this?**

_How about what?_

**I'll feed you your precious memories.**

Holly sniffed, as if. _The catch?_

**The day you turn eighteen, you're mine.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Attempted Rape/Non-Con

The caregiver was creepy. He liked to sit next to her, his knees a little too close, and put his hand on the small of her back, not too high, not too low. He'd watch her, eyelids heavy, just staring.

Sometimes, when she was on the rug, legs kicked up and her nose in a book, he'd settle down next to her. He wouldn't talk, but he'd touch her, just barely, on the shoulder, his skin like poison against hers. Holly hated it, hated _him,_ but he wasn't unkind — not really.

Just creepy.

**He's staring again.** The thing was draped around her neck, reading her book through a veil of tousled black hair. To her side, the caregiver was on the couch, his knees to chest, sucking on a silver spoon, just staring, not at the radio, not at his cereal, but her.

Holly wrinkled her nose in distaste, not daring to look away from her book. _He's always staring._

**I don't like him,** it said, curling, if possible, closer to her, and she grimaced. Its skin was wet and slippery like blubber, rubbing against the back of her neck, and it smelled horrible, like fish and rotting wood.

_You don't like anyone._

**Fair,** it snorted, **but still, he stares at you like you're a piece of meat.**

Holly toyed with the corner of her page, running her thumb along the edge. _Like you're any better._

The thing scoffed, butting its head harshly against her chin in a soundless reprimand. **I might be a monster, but unlike him, I will wait until you are of sound age to claim you. You're seven.**

At that, she blanched, vomit rising from the depths of her stomach and burning the back of her throat as she tried to forcefully shake the images of — of _that_ out of her head. _I really don't need those visuals right now, or ever, for that matter._

**Get used to it, cupcake.**

Holly frowned, and then winced sharply, pulling back her hand from her book. A dribble of blood balanced on the tip of her thumb, and before she could do anything about it, the caregiver was by her side, hoisting her up by her elbow, and inspecting her injury.

He smiled nastily, the tip of his tongue darting out and wiping up the trickle of blood that ran down the length of her thumb. "There you go," he muttered against her wrist, pressing a kiss to her pulse. "All better, yeah? It was just a little paper cut."

"I'm okay," Holly said meekly, goosebumps going up and down her spine as he locked eyes with her. She wanted to slap herself silly; she wasn't some damsel in distress, but his eyes, his eyes were so rotten. "Thank you."

The caregiver's smile mutated into something darker, and he let her go, stalking towards the windows and shutting the blinds. He turned towards her, and she trembled in her dainty pink dress as his hooded eyes traveled hungrily down her tiny frame. "Why don't we play hide-and-seek?"

"But, I want to read my book," she squeaked out, wanting to shield her body from his crude stare. The thing was pinching the sides of her neck painfully, glowering at the caregiver. **Sick fuck.**

"You can do that later," he said in what he thought was in a reassuring manner. "I just want to play one round, promise."

Holly's eyes darted towards the door. "Okay, and then my book?"

"Yes, and then your book," he said, his smile straining. "Now, scram, before I decide to count down from five!"

**-X-**

Dust was everywhere, suffocating her, and despite Holly not being able to see a thing, it was comforting. She had her back propped up against the cabinet wall, cleaning supplies puddled at her feet, and though she couldn't breathe, not properly, and not here, she didn't have a choice.

The caregiver was in the living room, still counting, and she was in the kitchen cabinet underneath the sink, scared out of her mind. It reminded her of her cupboard, of her misery, but it was the closest thing to safety she could find. He wouldn't find her here; he wouldn't. Instead, he'd check under the bed, and behind the drapes, but he wouldn't dare look underneath the sink.

"Seven!"

He wouldn't.

**Calm down.** The thing was on the counter, beady eyes narrowed and on the lookout. **You're behaving like a frightened child.**

"Three!"

Sniffing indignantly, she rubbed her nose on her sleeve. _I am_ not _a frightened child._

"Two!"

**Of course, now, when he finds you** — Holly sucked in a shaky breath — **and he will, do not attempt to run, do not attempt to scream, and do not attempt to attack him unless I say so, do you hear me?**

_When? What do you mean when_ — "One! Ready or not, here I come!"

**Don't be daft, girl! You aren't the first child to think hiding beneath the sink was a good idea.**

Toying with a sponge on the bottom of the cabinet, Holly stuck out her tongue childishly, glad the thing couldn't see her. _That might be so, but he's an idiot._

**My point exactly.**

Holly huffed.

Noisily, and without care, the caregiver shuffled through the doorway, head inclined and fiddling with his hands. He looked around anxiously, hungrily. "I know you're in here," he chuckled breathlessly. "I might've peeked, but just a bit."

A gaggle of goosebumps laminated her pale skin at his voice, and she felt let her tongue slip, squeaking as he hobbled closer to her hiding spot. Hurriedly, she clamped a hand over her mouth, the hairs on the nape on her neck bristling. _He peeked, he says, well,_ she glared at her feet, _fuck you too, cheating bastard._

The thing snorted mockingly. **What, you expect a pedophile to play fair?**

_Shut up, maggot._

**Oh, touchy.**

The caregiver crouched next to the sink, leaning in close, his ragged breath coming out in spurts. "Found you," he whispered, rapping his fingernails up and down the cabinet door.

Slow and deliberate, Holly huddled herself further into the cabinet, mindful of all the cleaning products. "Come on," he chided, clicking his tongue. "Don't be shy, I only want to play a little."

**Cupcake?**

Holly's stomach lurched as the thing materialized on her shoulder, nestling into her collarbone. _Yeah?_

**Kick the door open.**

Smirking, Holly booted the door without hesitation. "Fuck!" the caregiver howled like a just-lugged bear, rolling onto his back. He clutched his nose and tasted the blood on his tongue, snarling. "You little bitch!"

**Run!** Holly cursed, pushing cleaning supplies to the floor as she quickly scrambled out of the cabinet. Her head was pounding, and though her legs were little, she could run. The caregiver was on her tail immediately, chasing her around the house with great abandon, sweat dripping from his matted hair.

"Come here, brat!" he snapped, lunging at her wildly. Holly scrambled back, kicking at his hands blindly as he caught her by her ankle. She tried to scream, but the inside of her mouth lacked any moisture, and all that was issued from her gape was a croak. "You keep struggling like that, it's only going to hurt worse!"

"No!" she yelled, kicking him in the jaw, and he loosened his grip but didn't let go. She hated this, being weak and utterly pathetic in comparison to him. She wasn't weak, she wasn't, she promised, but he was big, so big, towering over her like a man starved, and he was _touching_ her.

His hands were big, too big, and she wanted them off. She remembered a spider — the poor thing — how it dangled over a bucket of water, tap-danced across a freckled boy's horrified face, and how it fell, writhing in pain. She wanted the caregiver to feel that pain, like the spider, she wanted him at her feet, crying, _begging_ for the pain to stop. She wanted it more than anything.

_"Crucio!"_

And he fell, twisting violently as he clawed at his neck, back arching to the ceiling as he cried out. Holly stared at him, frozen in her stupor, unable to look away. He convulsed, flailing like a fish out of water, and then, all too soon, he stopped, panting and gasping for air. _It worked..._

He was trembling, a frightened child in his too-big raincoat. "You, you," he babbled, frothing at the mouth. "You _freak!"_

_Freak, huh?_ Holly glanced to her left, taking one of her father's canes into her clammy hands. She caressed the snake-head handle affectionately, the tips of her lips twitching up, just barely.

"Are you proud of yourself?" she spat, pushing the butt of the cane into his stomach. "Do you think this is fun? I am a child, not even eight-years-old, and yet you want to push your rotten little prick into my body and destroy me, don't you?"

"I said," Holly pushed the cane down harder. _"Don't you?"_

The caregiver wheezed, a gargled cry leaving his bloodied lips. "Mercy! Please, I'm sorry—"

Holly laughed bitterly. "Mercy? You're a monster, you don't _get_ mercy."

**Do it,** the thing hissed in her ear. **Kill him.**

She lifted the cane high above her head, something akin to pity in her green eyes. "Bye-bye," she whispered.

And she swung.

**-X-**

Fania cursed, fumbling with her keys, the myriad of bags in her pudgy arms slipping. She had rung the doorbell twice, lingering underneath the porch lights, waiting for the caregiver to come and open the door for her. No one answered.

Furrowing her brows, Fania pushed the door open with her hip, jostling the bags to one side as she squeezed into the house. She called out for the caregiver, once, twice, a frown playing on her lips. Still, no one answered.

Crouching, though she didn't know why, she stalked into the kitchen, setting her bags on the counter. There were cleaning supplies on the floor, a bottle of ammonia half-open, drowning the floor in its sticky mess. Her nose twitched at the pungent odour — it was like the hospital, with its magnolia walls and too clean and too white gowns.

Fania hated hospitals. Hated the stuffiness and too kind nurses. Hated the wires and horrible isolation. Hated the hard gravy and cold mashed potatoes. It was like those seven months again, when her little girl, barely old enough to spell her name, barely old enough to have even lived, had stayed.

Fania tipped her head back, cigarette already lit and in her hands. She didn't like smoking, she didn't, but Ilya wasn't home, and she needed it, needed _something._ Work was monotonous, she had a migraine, and she didn't know where the caregiver was. No, that wasn't right, she didn't know where her little girl was.

She could've been anywhere, but only the worse places came to mind. It was ridiculous, but Fania worried, she always did. Holly had a knack for finding trouble, or rather, trouble had a knack for finding _her._

Like when she was four, and she took it in her head to chase an alley cat into the road. Ilya ran after her, and Fania would be damned if she couldn't hear one of those sleeper cabs coming. Either Ilya caught her and pulled her down, or Holly tripped on her own; Fania didn't know, but when you're really scared, your memory often blanks.

All Fania knew for sure was that her little girl was okay and in her husband's arms. The cat, though, was not so lucky. Holly was furious and beautiful in her grief, but Fania couldn't bring herself to pity the thing. Her daughter was safe, and that's all that mattered. She couldn't imagine what she'd do if the roles were reversed.

The little brat was going to send her to an early grave. Holly wasn't the type to run and cry to mommy; rather, she bottled everything up until she could no longer hide it. Like when she was three and still potty training, and Fania heard yelling in the bathroom and asked if everything was okay, the brat had lied to her.

She didn't want to admit she tried to climb onto the counter but fell and broke her ankle. She didn't want to cry in front of mommy, and she didn't want to make her worry. And while it was touching, the stunt only made Fania worry more.

"Mama?"

Fania jumped. "Holly?"

Turning to look at her, something like a spark of relief erupted in her chest before burgeoning annoyance won her over. "Where the hell have you been?"

Holly didn't answer right away. "I thought you didn't like smoking."

"I don't, but as your father says, a smoke a day keeps the stress away." Fania stole a drag, smothering a sigh. Holly was hiding something; she always was. "And you, young lady, are stressing me out."

Holly frowned. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh," Fania said and then added with a certain hopefulness: "Do you know where your caregiver is?"

Holly bounced on her heels. "I know where he isn't."

Fania sighed. "I'm never going to get a straight answer out of you, am I?"

The brat had the nerve to look smug. "No, but you tried."

"Barely," Fania said and then frowned, looking pointedly at the half-empty bottle of ammonia on the title floor. "Can you at least tell me why you or the caregiver didn't bother to clean this mess up?"

"I forgot."

"And the caregiver?"

"He also forgot."

Fania wanted to scream, but she restrained herself. The brat was talking to her in circles, but Fania expected this, where her little girl was smart, she wasn't. "Holly," Fania said tiredly, displaying both disapproval and approval in the same breath. "What are you hiding?"

Holly looked up at her, bright green eyes shining something dark, but it left as quickly as it came. Instead, she smiled widely, pulling something out of her sock. "Don't tell dad," she giggled, and in her hands was a melted, half-eaten chocolate bar.

Fania felt like crying.

**-X-**

It was never good news when a police officer came to your doorstep at three in the morning. It was even worse when they removed their service cap and requested politely to come inside. At that moment, they'd try their hardest to be human, but all you can see is the dark blue uniform and the shiny shoes, come to pull your world apart with their soft-spoken words.

The caregiver had been murdered, found by his girlfriend, Millie. Allegedly, when she had arrived at their shared apartment, the boy was already dead, his torso flopped over their bed like the body of a rag doll as blood poured out of his mouth and soaked his shirt. An hour later, Millie was being sedated by county police, her hysterical wailing waking up half of the building.

When police brought her into the interrogation room, the girl — if you wanted to call her that — was wearing faded jeans, a grease-smeared tee-shirt, and a stupid paper top-hat that she refused to take off because it was the caregiver who got it for her. It was easy to recognize her grief, but at the same time, impossible to take her seriously.

"How many times do I have to tell you idiots?" she was still screaming. "They killed him! That stupid family, the Nikolaevs, they did it! They bashed his head in! They took him away from me! They killed him!"

Funny enough, no one at the police station believed her, but they couldn't discount her either. So, they calmed her down and told her they would check out the house to see if they could find anything.

"I doubt you did it," Officer Clark Abner told Fania and Ilya. "You loved that boy like he was your own son, but you're still suspects. I'm just going to ask a few questions and do a quick sweep of the house, and then I'll be out of your hair."

No one noticed Holly was awake, sitting at the top of the stairs.

**-X-**

"Well, that should be about it," Abner said, already out the door. "You both have a good night, and stay safe, won't you? Who knows if whoever killed that poor boy will strike again."

Ilya smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "We will," he said and then closed the door.

The officer had asked about Holly, and instead of the truth, they told him that they were both at work, but when they got home there was only Holly. The caregiver had never shown up, and Abner believed it. Fania couldn't allow him to question their little girl — she was a child, only seven-years-old. She didn't need to get involved.

And if, when Fania was back in bed, Ilya was downstairs and checking the house twice-over, no one had to know. He couldn't sleep knowing that a killer was out there, wherever they may be. They could hurt his family, and he couldn't sleep not knowing if they'd be okay when he woke up.

He was in the living room, looking through old pictures when it caught his eye: the cane with the silver snake-headed handle. It wasn't his favorite (he preferred the pretty, hand-carved one his late father had gifted him), but he knew it like he knew the back of his hand. And there, on the handle next to gleaming yellow eyes, was a speck of blood.

Ilya felt like he wanted to throw up, but he steeled himself. He didn't see it, he told himself, he didn't see _anything,_ but he did. And no one had to know.

**-X-**

Holly was nine when she realized her father was afraid of her. It wasn't an obvious thing, no, but it was there, buried deep behind bright, dancing blue eyes. However, grief or no grief, pain or no pain, he still loved her. But, it cut, knowing that no matter how much he loved her, there was always going to be some underlying level of fear ingrained in him.

Except, he didn't fear her magic as the Dursleys did — rather, he feared _her._ And that hurt worse than anything the Dursleys ever did, and she slept in the cupboard under the stairs that was small and dirty, with lots of spiders.

**He knows,** the thing had said, when she was eight and getting ready for her birthday party. No one was invited, of course, she didn't have friends — kids didn't like _freaks_ — but her mama was making her a strawberry cheesecake, and her father was helping with decorations. **He saw the cane, saw the blood, he connected the dots, and he _knows_** _._

Holly didn't want to believe the thing at the time, but she couldn't stop thinking about _what if?_ Would he turn her in? Would he tell Fania? Would he think of her as a monster, a _freak?_ Would he hate her?

Did he already hate her?

But, when she came down, pretty in her black mary janes, he took her by her waist and hung her upside down until she laughed herself hoarse. Fania yelled at him to put her down, her face red from worry, and when he did, he just smiled warmly. He didn't look like he knew, and he didn't act as if he knew, he was just that, her father.

He wasn't the Dursleys. He didn't make her cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner, mow the lawn in the sweltering sun or play Holly Hunting. He loved her, and even now, when she saw the fear, the apprehension, he still loved her.

Holly wondered if James (was that her real father's name?) would have loved her as much as Ilya did. Would Lily have been as protective as Fania? Somehow, it didn't matter, because while Lily was her mother, and James was her father, they weren't Fania and Ilya. Holly always wanted parents, always wanted a family she could call hers, and now she had that.

She had a family.


	3. Chapter 3

Holly gawked.

Well, she didn't mean to, but the man was _huge._ His girth big enough to take up half of the couch, stomach so large it looked like the buttons of his waistcoat were going to fly off. His hands were pudgy with fat thumbs, and on the top of his pate was a worn-out, furry hat.

Fania sat beside him, tight-lipped and uncomfortable. She was softer on the edges, filling out her skirt warmly, her pretty, green eyes narrowed into slits. "A witch?" she said, working the word around in her mouth.

Ilya was in the recliner next to her, silver snake-headed cane propped under his chin, a shadow of a smirk on his lips. He wasn't in the least bit surprised; instead, he leaned forward, eager to listen, his wet, inky black hair clinging to his shoulders in clumps, soaking his sweater. His little girl was a witch, _of course._

The man, Professor Horace Slughorn, laughed jovially. It was an ugly, belly-busting laugh, the kind that made Holly want to mirror out of politeness. She knew him, knew him when he had disguised him as an armchair, but she didn't _know_ him. She could barely remember his name.

"Yes, that's right, Mrs. Nikolaev. I suppose you don't believe me?" he asked.

Fania gave him a dry look. "Not at all."

Professor Slughorn's face crinkled in a smile, brandishing his wand at the coffee table. _"Wingardium Leviosa,"_ he intoned, and then, the table lifted off the ground a good few feet.

"Huh," she said, and to be sure, she reached forward, feeling for strings. Finding nothing, she frowned. "You can put it down now."

The table lowered carefully to the floor.

"Still," Fania doubted, and Holly resisted the urge to bang her head on the wall. Trust her mother to be skeptical after seeing a table _float._ "How can you be so sure Holly is a witch and can go to this Hogwarts?"

Professor Slughorn turned to look at the girl in question. She was hunched over the green recliner, arms hanging around her father's front, a lovely little thing, but a Muggleborn all the same.

Not that he was prejudiced. "Tell me, do strange things, things that you can't explain, happen around her?"

Fania and Ilya stared at each other.

"No—"

"Yes—"

Ilya frowned. "What do you mean _no?"_

"What do you mean _yes?"_ Fania echoed.

"You don't see it?" He asked, then rolled his eyes. His wife was a smart cookie, but she was clueless, dumb to her surroundings and never the wiser. Like when he had gone down on one knee to propose, she had asked him if he needed help tying his shoes. "What about when she fell out of her tree-house, and she _bounced_ and landed upright, on her feet, perfectly okay."

Fania pursed her lips. "So, she landed on a methane bubble. They're like giant, natural trampolines underneath the grass, you know."

Holly snorted.

Ilya glared at her, _traitor._ "Fine," he said slowly with a bitterness that shocked even himself. "You can have your bubble, but what about that time she didn't want to eat her vegetables, and when we tried to force her, they caught fire. Explain that."

This time, Slughorn snorted. Holly coloured. It wasn't her best moment, sure, but you couldn't blame her. Holly hated spinach. **Besides, the princess always gets what she wants.**

Holly froze. _I thought you were asleep._

The thing just grinned nastily. It was bigger now, resembling a skinned rabbit, ropy with muscle, its beady black eyes still staring, unblinking.

Fania flicked the blonde hair out her eyes. "Perhaps she had a lighter."

"She was five."

"A little pyromaniac, then."

Holly and her father shared a look. "Okay," he sighed. "Last year, you cut her hair, and the next day it grew back even longer."

"Puberty?" Fania tried, but even she knew it sounded far-fetched. "Okay, fine," she relented, throwing up her hands in defeat, though a smile was on her face. "The brat's a witch, happy?"

At that, Professor Slughorn cut in, casting a quick _Tempus._ "Dear me, as amusing as that was," he said, "and it was very amusing, it's getting quite late, and we do have a bit of shopping to go through."

"Don't suppose we'll find what we need at our nearest pharmacy, would we?"

Slughorn suppressed a sigh. _Muggles._

**-X-**

**You know,** the thing said, sinking to its haunches, watching as Slughorn's wand licked out again and tapped five times on a brick wall. **For a Muggleborn just discovering their magical abilities, you act as if you've known your entire life.**

The wall shuddered and dilated and morphed into a large archway, revealing a long row of shops with signs advertising cauldrons, and windows stacked with barrels of Ashwinder eggs, teetering piles of spell books, and rolls of parchment.

The crowd before them flowed like a river, never stopping for obstacles but swirling around them. Merchants were hawking about Pepper-Up Potions ("For that stubborn cold!") and the Comet 140 ("Now with a braking charm!").

 _But,_ Holly blinked slowly like a lizard, linking her arms with her parents, as together, they took their first step into the wizarding world. _I_ have _known my entire life._

 **Yes,** it hissed, **but they don't know that.**

Holly looked up at her parents. Fania's head was spinning, spinning like it was about to wind itself off her neck, happier than a kid in a candy store as she looked around, trying to soak everything in. Next to her, Ilya was staring straight ahead, letting his cigarette rest at the bud of his lips, at a loss for words.

_Is he allowed to smoke in here?_

And then.

_Oh._

"What is this place?" Holly whispered, adopting a similar expression. The alley was familiar — a snowy white owl in a rusty metal cage, a joke shop to the south, but no one was staring, no one was wanting to shake her hand. She wasn't Holly Potter, the girl who lived anymore; she was Holly Nikolaev, Muggleborn.

 **Your acting could use some work,** the thing scrutinized. **It was no Hollywood, that's for sure.**

Holly took no notice of it.

"This, my dear," Professor Slughorn said with a flourish of his wand, leading them through the crowd, "is Diagon Alley!"

Holly mouthed _Diagon Alley_ to herself, trailing after him, the overwhelming feeling of nostalgia feeding at her heart. "And, where are we headed, sir?"

Professor Slughorn patted her woolly head. "To Gringotts Bank, of course, your Muggle currency is no use here, I'm afraid."

Fania frowned, saddling up next to him, her blonde hair brushing the back of her neck in soft waves as she pulled away at her braids. "Muggle?"

Holly nodded right along with her mother, feigning ignorance. "What's a Muggle?"

"What we call the non-magical. Holly, here, for example, is what we would call a Muggleborn, a witch or wizard who was born to two non-magical parents, like yourselves."

"Ah," Fania said simply. "It's a bit mean, don't you think? I mean, why not just call us non-magicals."

Professor Slughorn shook his head rapidly. "No, no, not at all. Though I believe the American wizarding community uses the word No-Maj."

"Is that so? It's a lot nicer than Muggle—"

Ilya rolled his eyes. "It's a neologism, sugar. Get over it."

Except, Holly knew, it wasn't _just_ a neologism. The word perpetuated the oppression the wizardkind placed on non-magicals, because, to them, they were _inferior,_ they were _nothing,_ or at least, that was what the girl with large front teeth always said.

It never occurred to Holly that one day _she_ would be the one to face the cruelty of a prejudiced world. Then again, she never thought she would have parents again. Or be alive, for that matter.

Holly smiled up at her parents, then stared ahead at the large imposing building, a set of white stairs leading up to a set of burnished bronze doors that were flanked by a pair of goblins in a uniform of scarlet and gold. Fania and Ilya regarded them curiously but otherwise didn't react.

Above them, in carven words, read _Gringotts Bank._ And with that, they walked to the main desk in silence.

"Nasty things, aren't they?" Professor Slughorn said, the bit of green he could see in Fania's complexion making him chuckle. "Don't worry yourself, though, the goblins don't bite, much."

 _No,_ Holly thought savagely, smirking to herself. _They'd just trap you in a vault and only check in every ten years._

Fania scoffed. "Funny."

Professor Slughorn cleared his throat, gaining the spokesgoblin's attention. "The Nikolaev's would like to exchange their Muggle currency for wizarding currency."

"Ah," the goblin grinned, all sharp teeth. "And do the Muggles understand how our currency works?"

Ilya stepped forward. "No, could you—"

"I wasn't speaking to you," the goblin sneered but answered the question, anyway. "There are seventeen sickles to a galleon and twenty-nine knuts to a sickle. That makes roughly five pounds a galleon or seventy pence a knut."

Ilya blinked, his mind elsewhere, then turned to Professor Slughorn. "How much would all of Holly's supplies cost, exactly?"

"Twenty galleons."

Ilya fished his wallet out reluctantly, grumbling under his breath about how money doesn't grow on trees. Greedily, the goblin took the cash, smirking with a certain grim satisfaction, and tossed a small moleskine pouch to him in return.

"Just so you know," Ilya said, side-eyeing Holly. "That's both your Christmas _and_ birthday present."

The thing laughed, falling on its side. **Sucks to suck.**

No one noticed Holly kicking the thin air next to her.

And they left, a hundred pounds lighter, twenty galleons heavier.

**-X-**

Holly was lost.

Well, she wasn't _lost_ per-say, but her mother and Professor Slughorn were at Flourish and Blotts gathering her schoolbooks, and her father was — where was her father again? She was sure he'd been right behind her, but when she glanced over her shoulder to check, he wasn't there.

Either he lost sight of her, or he abandoned her because _this was his chance!_

 _Not_ that he would ever do such a thing, but it was a possibility, always a possibility.

She was supposed to be at Twilfitt and Tatting to get her school robes, but here she was, in front of a down at heel and narrow shop with peeling gold letters over the door of the shop reading: _Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C._

Inside, the whole place had a thin layer of grit about it, empty except for the single, spindly stool in the corner and the thousands of narrow cases containing wands. Holly stood under the blinking light in the middle of the shop, rubbing her sore nose, dust was _not_ good for her allergies—

"Good afternoon," a gravelly voice greeted. There was a sudden flurry of action as an old man with pale silvery eyes came bustling out from the back, a long, winding tape measure floating beside him. He peered down at her. "Your eyes, how curious."

Holly blinked awkwardly. "My eyes?"

"Yes, yes," he, the old man, Ollivander, said. He raised up a gaunt hand as if to touch her, but then let it fall.

"So young, but your eyes," he murmured. "They tell a story. I've met many in my time, people who've gone through war and seen their brothers in all but blood perish, people who lived a life not their own, but your eyes? They could haunt even the bravest of men."

He looked at her sharply. "Who hurt you, child?"

_What…?_

Thing is, Holly didn't _know_ her story, but she knew misery, the darkness, and the spiders that had hidden in the dark recesses of her cupboard. And, the spiders, the spiders were her friends. They had crawled all over her arms and legs, spinning their webs of silk, and they had stayed with her when no one else did.

But now, when she had her mother and her father and, though she was reluctant to admit it, the thing, she wasn't alone, she had a family. But, fuck, she wanted to know her story, to know what the old man had seen in her eyes that disturbed him so. The thing told her it would give her her memories, of her past life, of who she was, but she still couldn't _remember._

She remembered the lonely child in the cupboard, the girl who lived, but she didn't remember who _Holly_ was, the girl with the haunted eyes. Holly supposed that maybe she wasn't ready to know, not yet.

"No matter, you still need a wand," Ollivander waved a hand, and the tape measure flew, measuring Holly from nose to shoulder, wrist to elbow, knee to armpit, and around her head. "That will do," he said, and the tape measure crumpled to a heap on the floor.

"How did you—" Holly swallowed, stepping closer, watching curiously as he darted around the shelves, taking down boxes. "How did you know?"

_How did you know I've been hurt?_

Ollivander paused in his movements, setting the boxes down. He took out his own wand, holding it up to the light, a soft, knowing smile on his thin lips. "Hornbeam and dragon heartstring. Ten and a half inches. Springy," he whispered. "All of which make up my wand, change one, and though it's allegiance may have changed, it will never forget who it was."

"You talk about the wand as if it has feelings, can think," Holly said, "like it's _human._ How do you really know if it can feel any of that?"

Ollivander smiled sagely, taking a box into his hands. He took out the wand and handed it to her. It was thin, cold against her hand. "The wand chooses the wizard, Ms. Nikolaev. As someone who has studied wand lore since before you were born, that was my first lesson."

Holly snapped her head up. "Does that lesson involve you knowing my surname?"

 **What a creep,** the thing scoffed from behind her ear.

Holly ignored it.

The thing kicked at her head childishly. **Pay attention to me!**

"I know a lot of things," breathed Ollivander. Holly could see the creases under his eyes, the laugh lines, the brigs of old. "That wand you hold is made of rosewood and kelpie hair, thirteen inches, very temperamental. Not a wand core I typically like to use."

"Well," he said impatiently, motioning to the wand in her hand. "Give it a wave."

A window shattered.

 **Good going,** the thing snickered.

"Sorry!" she shouted, flinching. _Shush._

The old man hummed. "No, no, not that one," he said, more to himself than her. He snatched the wand back and handed her another. "Apple and unicorn hair, seven and a quarter inches, flexible."

Holly stared at the wand hesitantly but gave it a wave. Beside her, the stool caught fire. _A shame it wasn't you,_ she jested at the thing, watching helplessly as Ollivander stopped the flames from consuming anything else.

 **What can I say?** It quipped. **My heart burns for you, darling.**

Holly considered it. _Do you even_ have _a heart?_

"Definitely not," muttered Ollivander, snatching the wand from her hand. He leaned close, their noses almost touching. Holly could see herself reflected in those pale eyes. "Tricky, tricky, you're a difficult one, aren't you? Not to worry — ah," he turned away, "here we are, holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple."

Holly took the wand in her hand gingerly and shivered as something warm swelled through her — it was like home, and her magic, tangible and as green as her mother's eyes eddied around her, singing its graces like it missed the feeling of being complete, of being whole.

"Splendid! Oh, but it's strange, you see," he fixed Holly with a pale stare. "I remember every wand I sold, Ms. Nikolaev. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix feather in your wand had a brother, just one other."

Holly felt the brigs of déjà vu stab at her.

"Thirteen and a half inches, yew. The boy who I sold the wand to had dark eyes and even darker ambitions. Such a sour boy, but I expect he will go off to do great things, as will you, I hope. I believe his name was—"

"—Tom Riddle."

Ollivander pierced her with a stare. "Yes, that's right," he said, barely above a whisper. "How did you know?"

Holly lifted a hand, touching her forehead where the lighting scar used to be. "Woman's intuition?"

**You're eleven.**

"I see," he frowned. "That will be seven galleons, Ms. Nikolaev."

The thing scoffed. **We need to work on your lying, cupcake.**

"Oh," she blinked, fishing out the gold coins. She was lucky her father gave them to her to hold. "Of course, here."

_I'm not that bad._

He thanked her and bowed her out of the shop, but as the door was closing behind her, she could've sworn she heard him say one last thing.

"Good luck, Ms. Potter."

**-X-**

"Professor—" Fania hesitated, cautiously picking up a ragged looking book, the leather cover was peeling off, and the pages were yellowing, but it was second-hand, and it was all they could afford. She placed it in the basket with the other schoolbooks. "What is Transfiguration?"

"Ah," Professor Slughorn said, leaning against a bookshelf. "Transfiguration, tricky subject, that. Can't say I was ever good at it, I'm a Potions Master, you see, but the best explanation I can give is that it's the art of turning one object into another, like—"

He tapped his chin idly. "Oh, yes, like turning a match into a needle! I remember that one, I believe it was the first spell I ever learned."

"Is that so?" mused Fania, somewhat awkwardly. "Is it possible to transfigure a human being? Change their hair color or turn them into a pig?"

Professor Slughorn nodded. "Yes, yes, however," he grew pensive, piercing her with a sharp look, "it is _very_ dangerous, one who messes up in casting their spell could be disfigured permanently, or worse, killed, which is why human transfiguration is only taught to sixth years and above at Hogwarts."

"Are you implying that I wanted my daughter to learn how to..." she trailed off, her voice shaking. She sought desperately to reign in the anger that opened up in her sternum, pinching the bridge of her nose, inhaled, exhaled.

There was no point in getting angry. There was no point in getting angry. She was being stupid, overreacting over the smallest of things, but she couldn't help it. No matter how hard she tried.

She loved her daughter too much.

"Do not," she hissed, cornering him into the bookshelf. "Do not think for a _second_ that I would _ever_ do anything to hurt my little girl."

There was a long silence.

Professor Slughorn took that time to gaze at her steadily, letting her gather her thoughts and calm down. "I never thought you would, but I apologize, Mrs. Nikolaev, it was only a warning. Muggles, you see, are always so very curious that they forget that magic is not always about flying broomsticks and wand-waving."

Fania relaxed, if only a little, and backed up sheepishly. "No, I'm sorry," she said softly. "I just — I get protective, and sometimes I overreact at the smallest of things. She's my only child, and as her mother, it's stressful, you know?"

Professor Slughorn laughed at that. "Oh, yes, I understand. I was an only child myself. Worried my poor mother sick, I did, in my youth."

"Yes," sighed Fania. "Holly's always getting into trouble, whether by her own accord, or pure accident. Doesn't help that she thinks she has to save everything she sees, either."

"That is the most Gryffindor thing I have ever heard."

"What?"

"Nothing. Mrs. Nikolaev, I do believe we have everything we need in here," he peered into her basket, counting the titles. "Yes, we do. Let's collect Holly then and get her wand."

Fania nodded, and after paying for the schoolbooks (about three knuts each), they were about to leave when Ilya came in, a tinkling bell ringing from somewhere inside the shop, his expression flat, restrained.

Fania was on him instantly. "What did you do?"

Ilya laughed, a nervous edge to it, thinking how funny — funny and scary — it was, the way wives could read their husbands' minds after a while. "What makes you think I've done anything?"

Fania gave him a dry look.

"Fine," he admitted. "I lost Holly."

A beat of silence.

"You _what?"_

**-X-**

It was cold, the wind raising Holly's hair away from the back of her neck so that she felt suddenly naked and bald, cold fingers nipping at her nose and exploring the sides of her face. It even blew her eyelashes away so that her eyes were bathed in a rush of coldness, and she needed to blink in order to read the words on the sign swaying back and forth over her head: _Twilfitt and Tatting._

Even with the wind twisting the sign away from her, she could see that it had been there for a long time, its original coat of cerulean paint streaked with rust where years of rain and snow had finally eaten the paint off down to the metal.

The door of the shop was propped wide open, rows of plain black robes lining the wall inside. A young boy with a darkly handsome face and striking grey eyes was in the back, standing on a footstool, his long black robes pinned at the hem as a witch scurried about him, the same magical tape measure Ollivander had taking the boy's measurements.

A second witch approached Holly, dressed head to toe in royal blue. "Hullo," she said when Holly started to shiver due to the cold. "Come in, come in, you must be freezing."

Her wand licked out of her sleeve and tapped Holly's forehead, shrouding her in warmth. "Better?" she asked, standing Holly on a stool next to the boy as she slipped a long robe over her head.

Holly inclined her head in thanks, observing the boy beside her. He was taller than her, a casual elegance about him despite the traces of mirth she could see in his pointed front. The boy reminded her of someone, but she couldn't for the life of her remember _who._

"Keep staring, I may do a trick," drawled the boy when he noticed her eyeing him, smirking at her through a curtain of lustrous black. It made her almost jealous, a hand reaching up to touch the rat's nest she called her hair — it was long, falling in loose coils at her waist, but it wasn't shiny, not like his.

"Really?" quipped Holly. "Why not roll over then? I'll give you a treat."

The boy looked as if he wanted to be upset but decided against it, something of a grin stretching across his face. "You're funny," he said and held out his hand. "Orion, Orion Black. And you are?"

 _Black._ Holly knew that surname, she was sure he did. In her head, she could picture a grim, the beastly thing, and a man with sunken grey eyes and teeth as yellow as a corpse. He was reckless and restless, steadfast in his immaturity, willing to play the sinner but not the saint. Holly didn't even know his name, but she felt like she knew him all her life.

For once, Holly wished the thing was with her, but of course, it decided to go to the bar across the alley and steal a drink or two when no one was looking. She wanted answers, and she wanted them now.

And then, there was Orion's hand. It reminded her of someone, someone else, not the grim, but a boy with a pale, pointed face and even paler eyes. He was haughty and spiteful, an arrogant boy who cried wolf to his father, but he was scared, so scared, and loved so deeply despite all the bad. Holly wished she hadn't been so stupid and just accepted his friendship.

Holly looked at Orion, looked at his hesitant grin and warm but guarded eyes. "Holly," she smiled and shook his hand, leaving off her last name. She didn't know why, she really didn't, but something inside of her told her it was the right thing to do.

Orion raised an eyebrow at her. "Just Holly?"

"Just Holly."

"So, funny _and_ mysterious," he practically purred, squinting at her. "I like it. You're not boring like Malfoy."

"Malfoy?" she inquired, more to herself than to him. She knew that name, could've sworn she heard it before, but the closer she got to figuring it out, the farther it slipped out of her grasp.

The boy scoffed. "Abraxas Malfoy. He thinks he's all that because his daddy spoils him rotten, but frankly, the way he conducts himself is revolting. He's the Malfoy heir, a proper wizard unlike those filthy Mudbloods, not a baby."

"Mudblood... " Holly frowned openly. It should have been funny, but it wasn't. It left a bitter taste in her mouth, burning the back of her throat. She felt vulnerable, naked even, as the word washed over her, rubbing at her skin until it was pink and bloody. "And how should the Malfoy heir act?"

Orion pursed his lips in thought and stretched his arms, feeling out his robes. The sleeves slipped down to his elbows, and the witch attending him frowned, carefully lifting his arms to remove the ill-fitting robes.

"Respectful in his own right, cunning but graceful, the epitome of confidence without the repercussions of arrogance," he said in the rhythmic tone of someone repeating a well-drilled line.

"And if he's not that, then… what?" Holly said. "A pretentious pooch?"

Orion snorted before he could stop himself. "More like a peacock."

"Don't tell me he struts," Holly joked.

"Oh, he struts," Orion said with a scowl, "struts like he's got a stick up his arse."

Holly smirked, she was beginning to really like the boy. "Are you sure you aren't talking about yourself?"

"Ha. Ha. Ha." Orion made a face at her, forgetting himself in the banter. "Want to check?"

"Maybe." One of the witches, the one in royal blue, made a muffled choking sound, pinching Holly in the thigh with her needle. Holly hissed but didn't otherwise react. "Just bend over nice and pretty for me."

"As if," Orion lobbed back, huffing. "I bend for no one."

"Sure you don't," Holly said. "You going to Hogwarts?"

"Of course, I'm bound for House Slytherin, as all Blacks are. Though, I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too horrible. I hear they have to answer riddles every time they want to get into their Common Room, and I like challenging myself. You?"

"Don't know," Holly chewed at her lip. _Houses?_

"Fair enough. Say, let's stay friends no matter what house we are in," he paused, furrowing his eyebrows at her. "We _are_ friends, right?"

Holly smiled teasingly. "I don't know, are we?"

Orion matched her smile, this one less hesitant than the first. "If you'll have me."

Holly cut herself off before she could speak, her face freezing in absolute horror. In the open doorway stood her mother, all but sweet in her stewing ire.

 _"Holly Nikolaev!"_ she growled, low and very angry. "Where have you been?"

"Here."

"Don't smart-mouth me," her mother scolded, regarding her with cold eyes. "If I ask you a question, I expect you to answer me honestly."

"Ollivanders," Holly admitted, "to get my wand. I promise that's all I did."

Fania didn't look convinced. "Say what you will," she said offhandedly, eyeing the robes lined against the wall. "Are you almost done?"

The witch clad in blue answered. "She's done, ma'am."

"Good, thank you," Fania said, tugging Holly off the footstool. "Come on. We still need to grab your cauldron."

"Mama, wait!" Holly blurted out, pulling herself out of Fania's ironclad grip. "I want to say goodbye to my friend."

"You have friends?"

Holly glared at her. "Yes, now leave."

"Leaving," she chuckled, and she was out the door.

"Nikolaev…" Orion murmured. Something dark flashed across his face as he said her surname, and he struggled to hide his frown. "You're a Mud—" he stopped himself, thinking better of it. "You're a Muggleborn?"

"Is that a problem?" Holly snapped. He was staring at her with cold eyes and that hurt. It was unfair, so unfair. Orion was her first friend, and already, she was losing him.

And it shouldn't hurt because they just met, but it _did._ It reminded her of Dudley, that whale of a boy she called a cousin who fancied punching her face into new and exciting shapes. He thought it funny to chase away anyone she could've called a friend. He called her a _freak,_ drawing the word across his tongue like it was a horrible slur. And no one stood up to him, not for her, never for her.

Holly just hoped Orion wasn't like those other kids, too scared and too weak to do anything but roll over and take it. "I—" he hesitated, eyes darting towards the entrance. When they returned, they were different. Warmer. "I don't know."

Holly scoffed. "You don't _know?"_

Orion flushed, just a little, and grabbed her wrist, pulling her towards the back wall and away from listening ears. "You don't get it," he bit out, his nails digging into her skin. "I _can't_ be friends with you. My family would disown me, call me a blood traitor, but—"

"—but what?" Holly said, slapping his hand away. "You made yourself clear. I'm a filthy _Mudblood,_ not even a proper witch, just like you said."

"Stop it!" Orion glared at her. "Don't talk about yourself that way!"

"Why should you care? We aren't friends—"

"—But I want to be."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holly's scared, Fania's sad, Orion's smug, Tom's pissed, and the thing is dramatic.

There was only so much horror you could take in and understand before your mind snapped. Holly could see the bodies; skin tinged grey, blue-lipped with hollow stares, dead, dead, dead. They laid like dolls, limbs at awkward angles and heads held in such a way that they couldn’t be sleeping.

Holly wanted her blood to thicken, clog up the passage to remorse, and leave her with no human compassion. She wanted to _laugh_ at their silly expressions and give them rude names until it stopped hurting because she didn’t _know_ them. It was all in her head, and she was going insane. 

Except, she wasn’t. 

Holly Potter died on May 2nd, 1998.

And to that, she _did_ laugh. It hit her like a freight train, to see her dead body in the arms of a giant, his tears growing fat and heavy, growing _pregnant_ , and then falling: _plink_ , onto her pale, terrified face, frozen in death. And if that didn't horrify her, the screams did. There was so much of it, like an animal that's been skinned alive, garbled, muffled, intermittent, but none the less distressing and intense.

Above it all rang a high, sibilant voice. Holly knew monsters, knew the one that laid next to her at night and the one that still haunted her dreams even after she bashed his head in, but _this_ one?

Holly hoisted herself up on her elbow, blood rushing to her ears as she threw up all over herself and her bedroom floor.

This one was _smiling._

It was a wide, horrible thing — no lip, all teeth, with snake-like slits for nostrils and a pair of scarlet red eyes. It wasn’t human; not anymore, no human could smile at death like that. No human could look upon carnage and fucking _smile._ No human could possibly be that vile, that sick.

Holly’s world was spinning, spinning so fast she could barely breathe. She was teetering on the edge, wasting away, ready to fall and let death take her apart. Leaning over, she threw up again, wheezing as she went, her throat burning. She wanted it to just _go away!_

“Stomach ache?”

The world slowly came into sharp focus, the deafening roar in her ears silenced.

It was her father.

Except, he wasn’t meant to be here, was he? Holly’s estranged aunt was dead, and he went back to Kyrgyzstan for the funeral. He didn’t love her — he was always complaining about her — but he cared. Cared enough to go to the funeral. 

And yet, he was sitting by her feet, face concealed by the dancing shadows streaming from her open window, but he was _there,_ alive, and so warm. Holly all but threw herself at him, burying her face into the crook of his neck, her body racking with unshed tears. She couldn't allow herself to cry, not here, not over that monster.

_‘Dad?’_ Holly tried to say, but all she could manage was croak that scared her to her core. He was holding her so tightly, uncaring or unaware of the puke dribbling down her chin and staining her front.

“You’re a mess, lyubov,” Ilya said, swearing under his breath as he used the collar of his shirt to wipe at the drool on her lip. _Love,_ his name for her in Russian. “Think you can stand up for me?”

Holly sagged further against him, shaking her head. She didn’t want to get up, not when the whole world was spinning on its axis. “I’m fine,” she babbled, squeezing her eyes shut. “Just a bad dream. A _really_ bad dream. Why are you here? I thought you were in Kyrgyzstan, and that’s so far away—“

“I missed my flight, but you don’t need to worry about me. Let’s worry about you. Why don’t you tell me what that dream of yours was about?” he asked, and that seemed to be the wrong thing to say. 

Holly whimpered, just a bit, her lip trembling terribly, but still, she didn’t cry. She wouldn’t dare give that monster the satisfaction, not now, not ever. She was stronger than that. 

“No.”

“Hols,” Ilya sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me, you know that. Don’t be a stranger.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

Ilya scoffed. “Try me.”

“There was—” Holly hesitated, weighing her next words. She loved her father, and as far as she knew, he loved her too. But, the fear, it was always there, lurking behind baby blues. "There was this monster, with these horrible red eyes, and he was smiling, and I - I don’t know. He scared me, Dad, he wasn’t human. No human can smile at death like that.”

“Oh, Holly,” he said, his grip on her, if possible, growing tighter, almost painfully. “A monster? Don’t be silly, the only monster here is you. I saw the blood on the cane. I know what you did to the caregiver. I know you killed him.”

Holly’s stomach fell to her feet, eyes flung so wide you could count every little vein. _No..._

“Did he scream, Potter? Did he scream as you bashed his head in?” He was laughing now, his head thrown back. “Oh, but he deserved it, didn’t he? He touched you when he shouldn’t have, and no one can touch you, no one.”

Holly choked back her terror as her father roughly shoved her to the floor, her head hitting the corner of her desk. She couldn’t see him, not properly, but the shadow looming over his face only added to her fear.

“No one can touch you,” he parroted, and as if it were an afterthought, he added: “No one but me.”

And then he _smiled_ , eyes as red as blood as he pressed a finger against her forehead.

Holly screamed.

And then she woke up.

**-X-**

There was an angry, red lightning bolt on her forehead. It was an ugly thing, not deep, but deep enough to leave a faint, visible scar. It would scab and bleed like any other injury, but it wouldn’t heal, and it wouldn’t disappear. Holly will be left with a reminder of that monster every day until the day she dies.

**Don’t be so dramatic, scarface.** The thing bit out, on its hind legs, messing with her toothpaste and smearing it across the mirror. Holly wiped at it with a bundle of tissue paper but didn’t otherwise react. **That little mark of yours is fate, and you can’t stop fate. Believe me, I tried.**

_I hate it,_ Holly wanted to say aloud but didn’t. The walls were thin; it wouldn’t do to be heard, talking to herself. _I hate this. It doesn’t make sense; how does hitting my head on a desk leave a scar like that?_

**I never said fate made sense.** The bite was still there, in the back of its throat, lurching, wanting, but not quite mean. **It just is.**

Holly swallowed. _Was that dream, then, that monster, was that real?_

**Would you rather I lie to you and tell you it wasn’t?**

Holly stared down into the sink and swore she saw red eyes: the sort of eyes she had always imagined but never actually seen in the basement below the house where it was dark and wet. People were dead _, good_ people. She didn’t know their faces, and she didn’t know their names, but they mattered, and they were dead because of her. Holly lowered her head, wishing to pay her respects but not knowing how. _Nothing good comes from lying._

**Good.** The thing smiled. **There is no monster, cupcake, not yet.**

Holly tightened her grip on the sink, shoulders threatening to swallow her neck whole as she hunched over. She wanted to disappear. _But there will be?_

**People change.**

She scoffed. _No, they don’t. Once a monster, always a monster. Just like the caretaker, and just like you._

**Orion Black,** Holly looked up sharply, **was raised to view Muggleborns as no better than the filth beneath his dragon-skin boots, yet he chose you, a Mudblood, over his beliefs because he wanted to be your friend. You gave him a chance to change, whether you knew it or not, and he took it.**

_Orion isn’t a monster,_ Holly hissed, something ugly rearing up in her pretty little head. Orion was misguided, and a little arrogant, but he wasn’t evil. _He’s got a good heart underneath all that bigotry, and I was lucky enough to be there to help him find it._

**And if you hadn’t?** The thing questioned. **Who’s to say he wouldn’t have grown up to be as bad as that monster of yours?**

She twitched. _He isn’t a monster._

**No,** it amended, **but he could have been.**

Holly frowned, and her head felt as heavy as lead. The thing had a point, a good one, but she’d rather be dead than admit it was right. _People don't change; you just don't know who they really are._

**And do you know him, princess? Do you really know who Orion Black is?**

Something cracked underneath her hands, and she didn’t have to look to know it was the sink. “I hate you,” she muttered.

**You’ll learn to like me soon enough,** it said and materialized on her back, visceral arms looping around her neck. Holly scrunched up her nose at the weight (and by extension, smell), but kept her trap shut. She knew better than to complain. **Take me to bed?**

_It would be my pleasure,_ she thought dryly, clasping the doorknob and slipping through the tight opening, pulling the door shut behind her. She stopped in the hallway and listened. There was no sound of the kettle running, no sound of voices coming from behind her parent’s door. She glanced towards the spare bedroom even though she knew it was empty.

It was always empty.

She doesn’t go to her room; she doesn’t want to. Holly knocked lightly at her parent’s door, hand hovering over the handle, waiting for permission to enter. The permission didn’t come.

Her parent’s room was flooded in moonlight, and it has a _feeling_ that hits Holly like a wall. It was soft carpet between your toes. It was whispering even when you know you don’t have to be quiet. It was familiar toys cluttering every surface in the same way that you sometimes catch old memories out of the corner of your mind’s eye. 

It was the same feeling as her mother. Safe.

Holly could see the shape of Fania’s body facing away from her beneath the comforter, the rhythm of her hidden rib cage expanding and retracting in even time. Stopping at the end of the bed, she stared.

Holly wasn’t sure how long she spent watching Fania sleep. Maybe hours. Maybe days. She would’ve happily looked forever if the world allowed, knowing her mother was safe and away from the monster and the things that hurt. Even her. Especially her.

“Mama,” Holly whispered, and it sounded pathetic, pushing on her shoulder. Fania stirred, but didn’t wake. “Mama,” she said again, louder, shaking her.

Fania twisted in her sheets to face her, opening one eye, then closing it. “What are you doing awake?” she slurred, annoyed, but not at her.

Holly shuffled uncomfortably, a ghost in her white jumper. “Bad dream. Can I sleep with you?”

There was a long moment of silence. Holly’s afraid Fania was going to laugh, make her sleep in her own bed, but instead of answering, she lifted a corner of her blanket and scooted over. The thing crawled in first, settling just below her mother’s breasts. It was too dark to notice Holly hadn’t climbed into the bed yet.

**Night,** it said, making no means to move, and Holly wiggled her finger at it as she edged closer. _Good night._

“Of course you can,” Fania said, and Holly smiled against the pillow as she slipped under the blanket. It smelled like Ilya, like her father. Fania wasn’t sleeping on her side of the bed, but she didn’t think she was supposed to know that. Holly missed him too.

“You can always sleep in here.” Fania shifted, placing a small hand on her lower back. It was warm. “I wouldn’t even care if you got children of your own, you’d still be my little girl.”

“You always say that.”

Fania smiled. “That’s because it’s true.”

She had a pretty smile, and it made Holly's stomach hurt to think it might not be there one day. “Do you think I’ll like Hogwarts?” she asked, more to herself than anything.

“Why’d you ask?” Fania watched her eyes dart back and forth like she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how. Fania gave her arm a little pinch and she spat it out.

“I’m scared,” Holly hesitated before she seemed to make up her mind. “I’m scared of leaving you and Dad. What if you forget about me? What if you get hurt, and I can’t be there to protect you? Would I know? Would they tell me? Would I be able to go home and see if you’re—”

“Holly!” Fania snapped, and Holly shut her mouth with an audible click. “I don’t need you here to protect me. If anything, I should be worried about _you._ I’m going to be okay, I promise.”

“But—”

“Do you trust me?”

“Always, but—”

" _Holly._ Do you trust your mother?”

It was quiet between them for a long time. It was that goddamned vulnerable kind of quiet that Fania was so good at and Holly was absolute shit at. The thing was asleep, warm against her stomach, and everything hurt. She wanted to lie and say no, but she couldn’t. “Yes, Mama.”

“Then go to sleep.”

And Holly did. 

**-X-**

Fania spotted him from the window next to the entrance, sitting in one of the great, big wicker chairs on the porch. He was patient, sitting there as if he had been out there all morning, and Fania was tempted to leave him waiting and keep her daughter here just a little bit longer.

Closing her eyes, Fania shook her head. She was allowed to be selfish, but that didn’t mean she should be. Holly was growing up, and Fania needed to accept that. She couldn’t trap her here forever. It wouldn’t be fair.

Forgoing the front door, Fania propped the window open, poking her head through. Horace Slughorn’s jaw was slack and drool dribbled from his open lips, eyes shut but not asleep. “Professor,” she called out, gaining his attention. He looked at her, blinking. “Are you going to come in, or am I going to have to come out?”

He blinked again. "No, no," he yawned and lifted himself slowly, bones creaking with each movement as if his body were made of nuts and bolts. “I’ll come in. You can never be too careful when Muggles are around; they might see something they shouldn't." 

“We don’t have neighbours, sir.”

“It’s best not to risk it,” he said, and Fania watched, amused, as he started towards the window and not the door. "Someone could be hiding out in the woods, Mrs. Nikolaev.”

“I’m sure,” she muttered, taking pity on him when he tried to reach for the window sill, the edge of his robes snagging a rose thorn. She could let him take his time, let her have a few more seconds with Holly, but… “We _do_ have a door, Professor, but if you’d like to try that, be my guest. I just don’t know if we’d have enough butter if you got stuck.”

He stopped. “What?” He glanced at the entrance, once, twice, then sighed, much too old in his purple trousers. "Oh, that. A door would be nice.”

Fania smiled, moving away from the window to let him in. “Long day?”

Professor Slughorn rubbed at his neck, and Fania felt the urge to do the same. “The longest. Is young Holly packed and ready to go? I do have two more students to grab before The Hogwarts Express leaves.”

Fania nodded her head towards Holly who was trying to drag a trunk as big as her torso down the hallway. “Speak of the devil, and she shall appear.” 

“Good, good,” he said, brandishing his wand. It was long, pointed to the ceiling, and it made Fania wonder if he’d ever poked someone’s eyes out with it. “Come close, now, hold my hand, don’t be shy. We are going to Apparate to the station. It will feel like being forced through a very tight tube, and you might get nauseous, but I promise it’s safe.”

Holly took his hand, lugging her trunk behind her. It was too big, too heavy, and it stuck out, but it was so _Holly._ Fania clasped a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. “You can _teleport?_ Can I teleport?”

“Apparate, and no,” Professor Slughorn corrected, shaking his head. “Definitely not, not until you’re seventeen. Now, please don’t let go of my hand. I don’t think your mother would appreciate it if you lost an arm and leg somewhere in London.”

_What the ever-loving…_ “Excuse me?”

Professor Slughorn winked at her, and with a crack, Fania felt a pull at the back of her neck, the world twisting and ripping away from under her feet.

_Fuck._

Vertigo was a nasty thing. The whole world was spinning, and Fania felt as if she was being held upside down, still moving, never stopping. From the corner of her eye, she could see Holly, little hands covering her mouth and looking sick to her stomach. It made her heart hurt.

There were people all around, but Fania didn’t care. She could kill him, right here, and she still wouldn’t care. She could hide his body parts all over London. No one hurt Holly.

Fania turned to Slughorn, and the world turned with her. “Thank you, but they won’t find your head.”

He nodded. “The rest of my body?”

She smiled, all white. “Call it mercy.”

He was gone before she could sink her teeth in. Fania glanced at Holly, and she stared back. They moved out of the way of people trying to cross. “Do you like scaring everyone you meet?”

Fania shrugged. “It’s the best part of being a mother.”

“Mean. I thought that was me.”

“Dubious,” Fania said, taking Holly’s hand in hers as they pushed to the front of the station where a large automotive train was. It was polished red, like Holly’s trunk. “The tax benefits are nice, too.”

Holly grinned something infectious and hooked thin arms around her waist. Fania sucked in a breath at the embrace, barely holding herself together. Her little girl was leaving, and it was time to face the music. “Holly?”

“Yeah, Mama?”

“You’re going to be okay.”

Holly‘s smile widened, “I know.”

Fania kneeled, tucking a strand of hair out of Holly’s face and behind her ear. There was a red lighting bolt on her forehead that wasn’t there before. “I’m not going to pretend to understand magic because I don’t, and I don’t think I ever will, but I do know one thing.”

Leaning forward, Fania pressed a kiss to her scar, lips lingering for a second before she pushed herself off the ground. “You’re going to make a wonderful witch.”

They didn’t bother to say good-bye, but that was okay. Fania would see her soon enough.

**-X-**

Reaching the back of the train, Holly settled into an empty compartment, tucking her trunk underneath her seat. Through the window, she could see her mother, a wisp of pink among twinges of grey. Her expression was tired like all the colour had drained from her and ran, puddling at her scuffed, monk-strap shoes.

Still, Fania held herself as if an invisible crown was on her head. It made the uneasiness in Holly’s stomach uncoil if only a little. Fania was going to be okay. Mama promised she would. 

There weren’t too many families left in the depot as the train’s engine roared to life, the raucous, metallic shriek of wheels against a track announcing the departure from the station. Holly was good with faces; she liked to think she could recognize someone from the back of their neck, and as the train passed by her mother, a ratty, paper top-hat frowned at her from behind an empty trolley.

She almost missed it. Holly wished she did.

Millie.

The caregiver’s girlfriend. Why was she there? _How_ was she there?

It didn’t make sense; the trial was over, allegations dropped — no one, no one but Ilya, was supposed to know. A funeral was placed, accusations were thrown, apologies were given, but everyone moved forward, everyone, it seems, except Millie. _The bitch._

The thing gave her a derisive look. **You killed him.**

Holly opened her mouth, closed it, then left it. The compartment door slammed open, and Orion was there, scowling and holding his truck like it weighed nothing. “Get up, Nikolaev, we’re moving to the front.”

“Hello to you too?” Holly said, startled, all thoughts about Millie and the caregiver leaving her head. “Wait, why?”

Black rolled his eyes. “I can’t sit in the back of the train. Only Mud... Muggleborns and sleazy couples that want to snog sit back here.”

Oh. Holly blinked. That sounded vaguely racist — classist? “You mean you _don’t_ want to snog?” she asked instead, not wanting to argue with the Pureblood.

Orion willed himself not to blush. He wasn’t a girl. “Only if you’re good,” he said on instinct, then shook his head, “Are you coming or not?”

“Nope,” Holly said, slouching in her velvet seat. “I’m already comfortable. I don’t want to move.”

He kicked the door shut behind him, moving to the seat across from her. His trunk narrowly missed crushing the thing. “Fine, I can’t be seen with you anyway. Malfoy would freak and go straight to his daddy about me playing with ‘filthy blood.’ Though I question why I tolerate you.”

The thing snarled. **May we kill this one too?**

_Please don’t._ “My charm, humour, and eagerness to please.”

**He almost hit me,** it snapped, knocking a wiry foot against hers. It was a warning, Holly knew. One that would come back to bite her in the ass if she wasn’t careful. **I want his blood covering the walls.**

_Funny,_ she thought, lowering further into her seat. _He also can’t hear or_ see _you!_

Orion allowed a small snort. “You forgot arrogance.” 

“Takes one to know one.”

A pause. Holly pulled her knees up, keeping her body forward but turning her head towards the window. It was all so green — the countryside thick and wild with barrels of hay and grass as long as hair, passing in a blur. She could spot Orion messing with his nails in the corner of her eyes, a curtain of black shielding his.

**Perhaps,** the thing huffed suddenly, **but that’s no excuse, cupcake. He’s evil.**

Holly frowned, the conversation she had with the thing last night running through her mind. She didn’t know Black, but she could get to know him, understand him. Keep him from becoming the thing she swore he wasn’t.

“You said when we first met that you were bound for House Slytherin. Is that where you want to be?” 

Orion gave that a thought, “Ravenclaw is full of snot-nosed prats that read a textbook for everything they do, Gryffindor is a clutter of dunderheads sharing one collective wand, and Hufflepuff is well… Hufflepuff. Slytherin is, of course, the best house. At least, from what my father tells me.”

Holly snickered. “Is now a good time to tell you Professor Slughorn thought I’d make a great Gryffindor?”

If Orion was surprised, he didn’t show it. “You make it difficult to be your friend. If the Head of Slytherin told you that, you’re hopeless.”

“And here I thought you liked to challenge yourself,” Holly mused. There was a rapping of someone’s knuckles on the carriage door, but Holly ignored it in favour of flicking a piece of lint at Orion. “For shame, sir, for shame.”

Orion didn’t even blink. “Perish,” he said, smiling despite his words, and without warning, the door slid open, hitting the metal clasp with a sharp _clink._ Orion’s smile fell flat. 

A boy with a pale, dark face surveyed the compartment with red — no, Holly shook her herself, they were blue eyes, like her fathers. Very pretty, like the sea, but like every sea, it’s what was underneath that was truly scary. “My apologies,” he said stiffly, “My last cart didn’t like me much. Mind if I join yours?” 

It sounded strange coming from him. He wasn’t supposed to _apologize,_ but that wasn’t right either. Holly didn’t even know who he was. Then again, she felt as if she knew him her whole life. Orion stuck up his nose. “Depends. Are you a Muggleborn? You look like it.”

Holly whacked his arm. “Shush. I’m sorry, he’s still learning to think on his own. You can sit next to me if you want. I don’t bite anyone who doesn’t bite me first.”

The boy watched her with narrowed eyes. “Interesting. I’m Tom Riddle, you?”

**Recognize him, my love?**

Black introduced them, bored, and Holly gulped, stirring uneasily in her seat. Without noticing, Holly lifted a hand to her scar, tracing the jagged lines. _He’s the monster, isn't he?_ Riddle cleared his throat, and Holly jumped, just a little. The thing didn't answer.

“What?”

Riddle’s cheeks were round but his shirt hung off his shoulders and reached his thighs. He was thin, terribly so, but he still held himself with an elegance Holly didn’t think she had ever possessed. “I asked if you knew what house you wanted to be in.”

Holly gave a one-shouldered shrug, not really paying attention. “Oh, Professor Slughorn mentioned to my mama I’d be good in Gryffindor. Though she had no idea what he was talking about at the time.” 

Riddle pursed his lips. “Slughorn? You mean you didn’t meet Dumbledore?”

“Uh, no,” Holly said lamely, “was I supposed to?”

“No, each Muggleborn is assigned a Head of House to get accustomed to the—” Orion grudgingly started to explain, pulling a face at Riddle, “—Wizarding world. They help you get your supplies, feed you the basic knowledge on magic and Hogwarts, and are supposed to check up on you at least twice a year, every year until you graduate. Dumbledore is the Head of Gryffindor.”

Riddle inhaled sharply. “I see,” he muttered, expression closing off. “Say I get sorted into Slytherin, would my assigned… _guardian_ change too?”

Orion clicked his tongue. “No.”

At that, Riddle deflated, just barely, his head dipping forward. If Holly wasn’t looking, she wouldn’t have noticed. “Is something wrong with Dumbledore?”

The boy cast his gaze towards her trunk. “I asked him to show me proof that he was a wizard. He set my dresser on fire and accused me of thievery.” 

The thing smirked from its corner. **The old fool wasn’t wrong, cupcake. Tommy-boy here has the runnings of a little kleptomaniac.**

Holly’s jaw clenched. “Really? That’s... mean. Slughorn wasn’t anything like that.”

At the same time, Black frowned, leaning forward. “Was he wrong?”

Riddle scowled. "Of course, he was. I’m not a petty thief."

Holly was about to open her mouth when the door jerked open once again. A little lady Holly saw earlier poked her head in, a bright smile plastered on her cheeks as she asked if they wanted any sweets. Orion pinched out three bronze knuts and grabbed two Chocolate Frogs, one for Holly, and one for him.

Black passed her the sweet. “Sorry, Riddle, thought you’d just steal one for yourself.”

**You know what,** the thing crowed cheerfully, **I like him. Keep him around, princess. He’s not boring like you are.**

_Shut up._

The compartment seemed to grow colder, and Riddle stared, his eyes dark. There was no light in them. Holly felt herself shiver despite his gaze not being directed at her. It reminded her of the monster so much it scared her. “I don’t like sweets,” he drawled.

Holly glanced between the two. “Uh…”

“Really?” Orion cut in, “No way. Everyone’s got a sweet tooth.”

Riddle leaned in, resting his elbows over the robes folded neatly in his lap. “You’ll find that I’m not like everyone.”

Black grinned. “Oh? Did your mum tell you that?“

“I like sweets!” Holly laughed awkwardly as something furious crossed over Riddle’s face. _“Thank you,_ Orion. I love chocolate."

Without prompting, she tore her box open, and the frog inside croaked, leapt into the air and landed onto Riddle’s robes. Holly froze, as did Riddle and Orion, as the animated sweet crawled across the dark material, leaving tiny, chocolate footprints all across it and then flung itself out of the carriage. 

Holly’s mouth looked like it was trying to make its way around an apology but nothing came out. Riddle twisted in his seat to glower at her. She felt like she could drown.

“Here,” she squeaked, extending a hand towards his robes, but he slapped it away, standing up abruptly. "Hey! I just want to help!"

He sneered. “You helped enough,” he hissed and stalked away. His footsteps echoed down the corridor, rebounding and fading until the last click was heard.

The thing seemed to laugh harder, and once again, was no help at all. **Oh, girly. When will you learn?**

_When you stop breathing._ She wanted to chase after Riddle, but decided against it. She didn’t want to be any closer to him than she had to. 

Orion blew out a breath. “That went well.”

Holly shot him a look. “Not like you were any better.”

He waved his hand at her dismissively. “I wasn’t trying to be. One Muggleborn is enough.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to be mean to him!”

“He'll get over it. You’re the exception.”

Holly flushed, her ire slowly dissipating. She really _wasn’t_ angry, but she didn’t know how else to feel. “I just - I feel really bad. I ruined his robes.”

“Rubbish,” Orion said. “You didn’t know the frog would move. Or do sweets move in the Muggle world too?”

“My dad brings home _a lot_ of Russian candy, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any move. He’d freak,” she chuckled, imagining her father running away from a Chocolate Frog. “Dad hates frogs.”

Orion unwrapped his sweet, catching the frog between two fingers and popping it into his mouth. “I think they’re cute,” he said after he finished swallowing. “I wanted to get a toad, but Mother wouldn’t listen, said I already got an owl. Dead useful, they are, but I never had a pet to call my own. The owl, Agatha, is my fathers.”

He pocketed a card. “Do you have any pets?”

The thing was like a pet, Holly thought. She fed it, bathed it, gave it a place to sleep. It could also kill her without a second’s hesitation. _If only you were cute._ “Not really. We adopted a cat for a little while but had to take her back when we learned I was allergic.”

**You’re cute enough for the both of us,** the thing quipped, moving to lay underneath the table bolted to the floor. Holly wasn’t allergic to cats, no — the cat could just see and chase the thing, and she couldn’t tell Black or her parents that, so she lied. 

Holly hated lying.

The two continued to talk, rambling about allergies and pets as the countryside now flying past the window grew wilder. The neat fields replaced by mountains and forests under a purple sky. The train lurched, slowing down with a creak of old wheels.

A voice echoed through the carriage: “We will be reaching Hogsmeade Station in five minutes. Please pull on your robes now and leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”

Orion’s hand unintentionally sought out hers at that, gripping it tightly against his hip. He didn’t go red when he noticed their interlocked hands, but a pink tinge appeared in his pale cheeks. “I want to be your friend,” he confessed in a hushed tone as if someone would overhear. “But I - I’m _scared_ of my family’s reaction if they found out I’m friends with a Muggleborn. I - they _can’t_ know. They just can’t. If they find out, I'll be disowned, and I like you, but..." 

“Okay.” Holly squeezed his hand. “It’ll be our secret, then.”

“And Riddles.”

They shared a tiny, scared smile. “And Riddles.”

**-X-**

A hat sang, actually _sang,_ a rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth, and when it finished, bowing to each of the four tables, the whole hall burst into applause. The thing was tucked in the sleeve of her robes, away from the floating candles and pearly-white ghosts. She could practically hear the rhythmic _thump_ of her heart as its nails curled into her pulse, drawing blood.

**Children,** it hissed, digging a nail a little deeper. A drop of blood slipped through the cracks of her fingers and onto her mary janes. **I loathe children. They’re so messy.**

Holly ran her tongue over her bottom lip, wincing slightly. _You watched me potty train, get over it._

A man, Albus Dumbledore — the one Riddle seemed to dislike — stepped forward, holding a roll of parchment. Holly thought he’d be scary, but the wizard held a kind, unearthly calm appearance, blue eyes twinkling underneath half-moon spectacles.

Holly zoned out as Dumbledore began calling out names, so distracted by the twinkling stars and cloudy skies above her — in the ceiling of all places! — that she almost missed Orion's name being called.

Orion swaggered forward, shoving his shaking hands in his pockets, his smile faltering into something more anxious. He caught her eye as the hat fell over his head, its brim opening wide and loud not even a moment later: 

“SLYTHERIN!”

He winked at her as he went to the green table at the back, far left, looking pleased with himself. Holly happily clapped her hands with the rest of the students, ignoring the thing’s indignant squawk about moving too fast.

“Nikolaev, Holly!”

Stealing a glimpse at her only friend, she bounded up the small, marble steps, smiling politely at Dumbledore. He returned the smile, and the next second, all she could see was the black inside of the hat. 

“Oh,” said a small voice in her ear. “What a lovely mind. Very loyal. You love your family, don’t you? It’s all here in your head, clear as day. You could be great in Hufflepuff, but oh my goodness — you’re a brave one… plenty of courage. I see it now. Well, better be GRYFFINDOR!”

The red table next to Orion’s clapped as she rushed to it, nearly collapsing onto the booth. An older boy with copper hair patted her arm, giving Holly a freckled grin, a splotch of dirt dusting his pink cheeks. He introduced himself as Septimus Weasley, the Prefect, and then slipped away, draping himself over another boy who was attempting to see how many grapes he could fit in his mouth. 

Holly nearly choked on her piece of bread when Dumbledore announced Riddle’s name. His face gave nothing away, but Holly could see the anger boiling under all the layers he carried, waiting to lash out. The back of his robes was streaked with chocolate — it looked like he tried to wash it off, and he had to walk to the Slytherin table amid gales of laughter. 

A pug-faced girl jeered, pointing at his bottom as she whispered loudly: "Look at the Mudblood’s robes! They’re filthy, just like him!” 

Holly wanted to punch her in her too-big teeth. Riddle didn’t deserve that. No one did. It was mean and childish and stupid, and it was all her fault. Holly wanted to apologize, she really did, she just didn’t know how to.

But Mama would.

Mama knew a lot of things.

**-X-**

Holly pulled the thick, maroon covers up to her shoulder and tucked her chin, staring at the blurry, dark ceiling until her eyes started to hurt. She didn’t eat much during dinner — a few slices of bread, half a baked potato, and a handful of strawberries — and she didn’t talk much, either. Then again, no one, except Weasley the Prefect, spoke to her during the feast, anyway.

She only had one roommate. Her name was Minerva McGonagall, and she didn’t look like someone you could crack a joke at to make them laugh. She was uptight and had a stick up her arse and disliked how messy Holly was when she threw her robes into her trunk without folding them, but she wasn’t mean.

They’d just reached their room and pulled off their robes when McGonagall, who barely spared Holly a word, pulled the deep red, velvet curtains hung to her bed closed, bidding her a mumbled good night.

Holly didn’t sleep.

The thing was playing with her hair, twirling it around long, nimble fingers. **I have a gift for you,** it said, an odd affliction in its tone. A lightly husked, tense lit that was barely perceivable, and Holly wasn’t sure existed. **Do you want to know what it is?**

She could already feel the start of a headache coming on. _I guess._

It hummed something slow, the type of music Fania and Ilya liked to dance to late at night when they thought Holly was asleep. **Wonderful. You remember our… wager, don’t you? How I lied and didn’t tell you I would feed you your precious memories little by little and not all at once?**

Holly remembered screaming at it, throwing the book, after toy, after plate, wanting to hurt it and make it bleed for _lying._ Nothing landed, and she ended up with a fork in her heel, but she remembered, and she learned to accept it.

**Lovely, and I’m not sorry for that, dearest, your pathetic mind would have crumbled — a shame, really, but I digress. That sick, twisted monster you saw last night? That was your worst memory as Holly Potter. Tonight, I want to give you the rest.**

Holly knew better than to trust it, but she wanted to so badly. _All of it?_

**All of it,** it conceded in uncharastically soft voice. **No blurry faces or missing names. No tricks or lies. You will remember every day, every minute, every second. I wish to... warn you, however. You are not Holly Potter anymore, darling. The memories that I’ve already given you? You saw them as Holly Nikolaev. Holly Potter marched to her death as a lamb for slaughter, without fear, and lost the war. But you?**

The thing chuckled darkly. **You were terrified, and yes, you might be brave, but you didn’t live in the middle of a war, and you didn’t lose everything that mattered to you. You aren’t Holly Potter. So I ask you, cupcake, what will you do with all those memories?**

_Nothing._ Holly didn’t even have to think — all she wanted was to remember — remember who she used to be and never will be again. Give respect to the fallen. See the man she used to love. Say good-bye. She wasn't going to do anything.

**Nothing? Nothing at all?** It scoffed, tugging at her hair harshly. Wide, horrible eyes stared into hers. **You dumb, sentimental fool. You’ll be mine for nothing! Doesn’t that mean anything?**

Holly didn’t look away, refusing to shrink back. _It’s like you said, cupcake. I’ll learn to like you soon enough._

The thing lurched, pinning her by her throat against the headboard. Holly hoped McGonagall wouldn’t wake up. **You always forget who’s in control, princess. Do you want to start Hogwarts with a broken neck? Though, that does bring me to the second part of my gift.**

She wheezed, sucking in shaky air. She could hear McGonagall stir in the bed adjacent to hers. _So kind..._

**Tom Riddle.**

Holly choked back a whine as its nails started to nip at the base of her throat. _What about Riddle?_

**Make him fall in love with you before your eighteenth birthday, and I won’t take you as mine.**

The thing released her, and she crumpled into her pillow, dry heaving. Her throat burned as she massaged it gingerly, unable or unwanting to think. Riddle was the monster with livid, red eyes. A sick, broken boy with the face of a thousand ghosts. He couldn’t love — couldn’t _feel._

But Riddle was a child.

And people changed.

She could practically hear her mama telling her how cruel it was to play with someone’s emotions. Someone who already hated her. Someone already so broken.

_Okay._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Very sorry for the late update, college is a sweetheart :) Also, happy holidays! You guys are the best, and this chapter is my gift to you. Tell me what you think :)

It didn’t seem like anything changed, but she could feel it, taste it. It permeated into her robes, shoes, under her skin and through her bones. It weighed on her mind, thick and heavy. Made her want to scream, to cry, to do anything to get rid of the feelings she didn’t know how to express — the laughter came bubbling out before she could even think to stop it.

It was a wet, raspy laugh that hurt her throat and made her dribble and cough, but it was a laugh. One that made her feel lighter and not so sick. She wasn’t Holly Potter, not anymore, and the reality of it came so strong she was having trouble remembering how to breathe.

_In and out._

The water was hot and left her skin pink and wrinkled like a prune. She held her head under the stream, letting it run down her face, down her neck and across her stomach and thighs. It didn’t wash away the memories, but it didn’t leave her feeling empty either. She remembered everything, and still, she didn't remember how to breathe.

_In and out,_ she thought, _in and out._

It made her want to laugh again, but McGonagall was just outside, and she didn’t want to seem insane. Holly told the thing she would do nothing with the memories — nothing but mourn for those she loved and those she never thought to know, but even she wasn’t so stupid to pass up knowledge of a future that would never come.

Not if she was going to make Tom Riddle fall in love with her. Holly Potter might have lost the fight, but Holly Nikolaev will win the war. 

_That,_ she would make sure of. 

**-X-**

There was no glass in the windows of the Owlery, letting cold, relentless air drift in and out, through feathers and up robes. It smelt awful, and the stone tiles, formerly white, were an ugly, dirt brown masked in straw and owl droppings. 

Holly could hear Orion’s teeth chatter over the flaps of wings and hoots of owls. His scarf pulled up to his nose and wrapped tightly around his neck, hands shaking as he stroked his father’s owl, Agatha. She preened at the attention, puffing out her chest proudly. She reminded Holly of Hedwig — a ghost in her white feathers. 

It was the three weeks into the school year, and Holly wanted to send a letter to her mama. She needed to apologize to Riddle, but she didn’t know _how_ to. Not when Riddle wouldn’t even look at her, let alone talk to her. He eluded her like she was a rat bearing the plague, seldom looking her way, and if he did happen to catch her eye, his face grew so dark she could see the bottom of the Great Lake.

Holly tried catching Riddle in the hallways and passing notes, but the boy was like a time bomb, able to smile and hold face until behind closed doors. Orion told her how Riddle would throw the notes into the fireplace, watching the parchment crinkle and burn until all that was left of it was ash. 

He joked that Riddle probably wished it was her. Holly couldn’t find a reason to disagree. 

When she mentioned the Owlery, Orion reluctantly agreed to come with, pouting (though he’d never admit it) the whole way there. He didn’t understand why she cared so much, but he ceased complaining when he saw the pretty school owls and Agatha. Holly borrowed his quill, shifting her weight against the wall as she rummaged through her rucksack for a leaf of parchment.

Finding it, she scrawled a short message, her writing untidy and almost ineligible:

_Mama,_

_In my first letter, I mentioned a boy I met on the train, Tom Riddle, and how I accidentally ruined his robes because of a stupid chocolate frog. I told you I would apologize, but I tried talking to him, and he won’t listen. I even tried sending notes, but Orion tells me he burns them. I don’t know what else to do without screwing it up even more. I just want to say sorry. You always told me that’s the right thing to do._

_Love,_

_Holly._

Orion plucked it out of her hands before she could give it to one of the school owls, reading it over. “Remind me to teach you how to write with a quill,” he said, pulling a face. “If you want to apologize so badly, talk to the git. You’re acting like a Hufflepuff, and don’t give me that rubbish about the Sorting Hat almost placing you there. I already heard it.” 

“I _tried,”_ Holly scowled, snatching back the note and handing it to a brown barn owl. The bird stretched its wings before taking off, fading away behind the castle’s rooftops. “Riddle hates me.”

Orion rolled his eyes, carding a finger through Agatha’s feathers. “Get over it.” 

The thing, who was wrapped up like a baby in her scarf, snickered into her collarbone, mandibles chattering darkly. The feeling of it made a shiver crawl up her spine. **You did make a fool of him, cupcake. I can’t imagine that it’s easy for him to forgive and forget.**

No, it wouldn’t, would it? Accident or not, Tom Riddle was all about first impressions, and she ruined it for him. He wouldn’t forgive her so easily. Not after the other first years mocked him like they did. Children were cruel, and they’d tease him until he broke, playing at him like he was a puppet without his strings. But Riddle wouldn’t break easily, no, instead, he’d break them, and they’d _thank_ him for it.

Holly shuddered. Riddle wasn’t the monster, not yet, maybe not ever, but he could be and that in itself scared her. “I need to apologize,” she muttered. “It’s the right thing to do. My mama would have my head if I didn’t.”

_Plus,_ Holly thought morbidly, _I don’t exactly have a choice._

The thing tutted. **Poor you, but if I’m not mistaken, you did have a choice. All you had to do was say you’d be mine, and that’s not so hard, now is it?**

_I’ll take my chances with Riddle._

**I’m not** **_that_ ** **bad.**

Holly seriously doubted that. She still didn’t know what it even _was._

“Sure,” Orion said slowly, then he smirked, lips twisting. “You sure you aren’t sweet on Riddle?”

Holly cuffed him upside the head with the spare bit of parchment in her hand, drawing a startled laugh from the Slytherin. If _anyone_ was going to be sweet, it would be Riddle. “Shut up, Orion. Just go.”

Orion shrugged, stooping down to pick at a regurgitated rat’s skull. He flicked it at her half-heartedly. “Don’t miss me long,” he taunted, already walking towards the steps. He threw a wave over his shoulder as he went.

Holly followed not five minutes later.

**-X-**

They met in an abandoned classroom on the fifth floor, empty save for a broken wooden desk that neither was brave enough to touch. The two didn’t meet every day, but when they did, it was always away from watchful eyes. Orion couldn’t be too reckless, not with his sister and cousins in the castle. One word about him playing _nice_ with a Muggleborn, and he’d be treated no better than her.

It stung, more than she cared to admit, but she could suck it up. It was self-preservation _,_ he insisted, and Holly believed him. She was his friend, his first _real_ friend, but they were his family. Dysfunctional, nasty, and austere, but family. She didn’t want to ruin that.

Still, the secrecy strained them both. “Minerva keeps asking where I go when we don’t have classes, and I don’t know what to tell her,” Holly grumbled, sitting opposite Orion with a wizard’s chess board between them. “I know you don’t want your family to know, but someone’s going to.”

“Riddle knows,” Orion huffed, “I don’t want to add to that. Walburga and Alphard are already suspicious enough. They don’t think I’m spending enough time with them, apparently. As if living with them wasn’t enough. At least Lucretia doesn’t care what I do.”

Walburga. His future wife. A horrible treat she was. Holly believed it luck she hadn’t run into the spiteful, older witch. Even as a teen, Walburga Black didn’t have a heart. “Riddle hasn’t told anyone, though. If he won’t, why would Minerva?”

“Not yet,” he said. One of Holly’s knights brandished a sword at him. “He might be a Muggleborn, but he’s still a Slytherin. He’ll want something in return. And McGonagall might be your friend, but she isn’t mine. I don’t trust her, so drop it.”

Holly frowned. “Then trust me,” she pressed, shifting onto her knees. “If we just tell someone we wouldn’t have to sneak around as much. It’d be like having a secret keeper but without the Fidelius Charm.”

“I don’t care, Holly. I said drop it, so _drop it,”_ Orion spat and snapped his fingers, his chess set starting to pack itself away. “How do you even know what the Fidelius Charm is, anyway? That’s an insanely complex spell, way past what they teach at Hogwarts, so it’s not like you could have found it in the library just anywhere."

**Think before you speak, my dear. You might reveal something you shouldn’t.**

Holly froze, the thing snickered, but before she could speak and make up an excuse for her stupid, _stupid_ slip of tongue, Orion was talking again. “Did you break into the Restricted Section?” He looked almost mad. “Without me?”

“Yes?”

Orion sent a stinging hex her way, and Holly yelped, narrowly dodging it. She threw him a dirty look. “Bloody - don’t laugh! Orion! What was that for?”

He sobered, snaring, “You broke into the Restricted Section without me! I’m your best friend! Now hold still and _take it like a man!”_

Holly can hear the gull of the thing’s laughter. It rattled inside her head, and if she didn’t fancy a trip to the infirmary, Holly would’ve done something stupid, like _hit_ it. **Don’t be shy, lovely. I like a firm hand.** If she gagged, Orion was too busy throwing jinxes at her to notice.

“Didn’t your mom ever tell you not to jump off a bridge just because your friend does?” she sassed, then recoiled, ducking behind the flimsy desk when he seemed ready to throttle her. “Okay, okay, sorry. I’ll bring you next time.” 

Grey eyes narrowed. “You better.”

“No promises.”

**-X-**

It was dark enough in the castle that they could walk together and not worry about being seen. Though, they didn’t make it a habit. Orion was too paranoid, too scared. He’d been on the edge of a panic attack ever since Walburga and Alphard cornered him in the Great Hall, putting their too-big noses in his business, asking him where he’s been, who’s he been with.

It would’ve been sweet if it didn’t annoy him so much. Still, he felt calmer now. The hallway was empty, the portrait’s asleep, and he could pretend they weren’t hiding from something that was bigger than them both. Orion loved his family, he really did, but they weren’t kind. Not like Holly’s. They’d tear her apart if they knew.

They didn’t talk as they walked side-by-side, not wanting to draw attention to themselves. It was half-past eight, and Orion knew he wasn’t going to get much sleep. He procrastinated on his Transfiguration essay, and he wasn’t about to do it on Sunday. And knowing Holly, she probably didn’t do it either, and she probably won’t until last minute.

Holly was lazy, almost bored with the course work it seemed, but she was scary smart. Her scores in practical magic were the highest in their year level, and if Orion wasn't her friend, he wouldn't have believed it. She was a Muggleborn — she didn’t grow up with magic, she didn’t even read any of the books the professor’s assigned. She just _knew._

It didn't help that Riddle was right behind her, the perfect student. Orion _hated_ him, and it wasn't because he was a Muggleborn that wasn't Nikolaev, though that certainly fueled the flame. Riddle was quiet, polite, always sitting at the front of the class, never raising his voice. A charming, handsome boy, he'd heard Professor Slughorn say. There was nothing wrong with him. Orion didn't understand why he hated him. He just did. And Holly was obsessed with him. He hated that too.

They were almost at the dungeons when Holly cocked her head to the side and asked, “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Orion attempted to ask, but before he got the chance, Holly slapped a hand over his mouth, pulling him behind a suit of armour.

They held their breath for a minute, waiting, when three students stepped out from behind the back corridor, talking quietly amongst themselves. Orion didn’t recognize the tall, pretty boy closest to the suit, but he knew the other one. It was Fleamont Potter; a fifth-year burdened with his grandmother’s maiden name. Walburga loved to tease him about it during banquets.

A girl, Euphemia Selwyn, part of the Sacred Twenty Eight, was next to Potter. She was taller than him, just barely, and much bigger. In her hands was a glistening, silvery grey cloak. When Holly caught sight of it, the witch squeezed his wrist, almost painfully. “Did you steal this from your father again?”

Potter rolled his eyes, cutting her off. “I already told you, it’s not stealing if he’s going to pass it down to me anyway. Plus, he’s busy with work. He can’t miss what he doesn’t know is gone.”

She snorted. “And how did that go last time? Oh, that’s right. He almost charged you with theft. Your own father. If your mom didn’t intervene when she did, he probably would’ve gone through with it too.”

“The keyword is almost,” Potter argued. Orion barely stopped himself from scoffing. What an _idiot._

“Only because your mom took pity on you. I kinda wish she didn’t.”

“Bugger off.” 

The other boy cleared his throat, taking the cloak into his dark hands. “It’s past curfew. Either get under the cloak or get detention.”

At that, the other two stopped arguing, shared a quick peck on the lips, then threw the cloak over their shoulders. Together, all three crept down the hallway and up the stairwell, only the scruff of robes and boots giving them away.

Orion swallowed, stepping out from behind the suit of armour. There was a weird look in Holly’s green eyes — almost sad, vacant; like she’d seen something she didn’t want to see. Orion blinked, just once, and the look was gone, never to exist. He was imagining things.

He seemed to be doing that a lot.

“That was an Invisibility Cloak,” he whispered, a little jealous. “They’re really rare. Lucy got one from father, but it wore out. She liked to wear it around the house and read her books. I always wanted one.” 

Holly nodded tightly. She didn’t look like she was listening. Orion frowned, but didn’t push it. She was always distracted. He bid her a good night, and they went their separate ways. The Gryffindor common room was on the other side of the castle, but Orion knew she wouldn’t get caught.

Glancing behind him, she was already gone. He wondered how she did that.

**-X-**

Come Monday morning, the school owl from before fluttered down between the strawberry jam and butter and dropped a small parcel onto Holly’s plate. Looking up, Holly caught Orion’s eye and nodded towards the doors. He didn’t make a point to show he understood, but she knew he did. He always did.

Ten minutes later, in the same abandoned classroom on the fifth floor, Holly tore open the package at once. An envelope fell out, and Orion opened it before handing it to Holly. With him reading over her shoulder, it said, in her mother’s neat scrawl:

_Holly,_

_Every apology does not need to begin with ‘I’m sorry.’ What you want to say, you can always show. Just be kind, wait for him to open himself up to you, and then you can apologize. The boy is young, and he’s upset. Don’t hold it against him if he holds a grudge because of it. What might be the truth might not be what he saw, and that’s okay. Everyone makes mistakes, but from them, they learn. You are very much the same._

_Your father is home, and of course, he brought back candy with him. We sent over your favourites, so hopefully, they survived the flight. I think your dad might cry if they melted. And I swear, his own sister dies, and he doesn’t shed a tear. But if sweets melt before you can eat it? He’d bawl like a baby. Don’t tell your father I said that, by the way. I rather not sleep on the couch. You know how uncomfortable it is._

_He also tells me to send you his love. He was mad about not being there for you when you were ‘shipped off against your will’ to Hogwarts. He wishes you’d write to him too. He misses you just as much as I do._

_Is everything in Hogwarts going okay? Your father and I know how hard it is for you to make friends, and we couldn’t be happier that you’re getting along so well with Orion. He seemed like a nice boy from what you told me. He’ll make a wonderful addition to the family. You can tell him that he can write to us too if he’d like. You said he was a Pureblood, right? I’m sure he has questions about the Muggle World._

_Don’t forget to say please and thank you._

_With love,_

_Mama._

Holly read the letter through twice before folding it up again, a curiously stifled feeling stealing the energy from her limbs. Her father wanted her to write to him. He didn’t forget about her. He still loved her, and the very thought that he might not made her stomach churn painfully. She didn’t even know she felt that way.

The nightmare of him turning into the monster was still too fresh, too bloody. She had let it sit and get infected and now every time she closed her eyes all she could see was her father’s face and that monster. _Voldemort._ And now she had to make Tom Riddle fall in love with her. How could she do that if she still had trouble differentiating the boy from the monster?

Holly stroked the letter with a careful fingertip, then set it back down in the parcel and turned her attention to the wrapped sweets. There were ribbon caramels, apricot fondant balls, rose and cherry chocolate creams, and vassar fudge — all her favourites, and her father got them for her. He thought of her even as he was burying his sister’s shell in the cold, hard ground.

She had no idea how long she’d been standing there when Orion dropped his head and planted a chin on her shoulder. She peered at him, and he noticed, awarding her a tiny, almost imperceptible twitch of his lips. “Did she mean it?”

Holly’s forehead wrinkled. “Who? Mean what?”

He hesitated, his face wound up so tight he looked like he might cry. “Your mom. She said that I’ll make a wonderful addition to the family; that I can write to her. Did she - did she mean that?”

“Mama is a lot of things, but she isn’t a liar,” Holly shrugged, resting her head against his. She could hear his heart just underneath his robes in the quiet room. She wanted him to be part of her family. Like she was once part of the Weasley’s family. “She’d probably adopt you if she could.” 

“She doesn’t even know me.”

“No, but that won't stop her from trying,” she grinned, something warm and so much like chocolate, and then reached into the package, handing him a vassar fudge. It was like on the train, but Riddle wasn’t there, and she didn’t need to worry about him. Not right now, not when it was just her and Orion. “Chocolate?”

He sighed and put it in his pocket. “Are you sure she wasn’t just being nice?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her that yourself,” she said, nudging him.

He smiled a slow, small thing. “Maybe I will.”

Holly counted it as a victory.

**-X-**

If Holly didn’t have to use the mortar and pestle to grind up snake fangs, she would’ve used it to grind up Tom Riddle’s innards. Or at least, that pretty face of his. She had come to Potion’s ten minutes early and hovered by the cabinets, waiting for Riddle to take a seat _just_ so she could be his partner.

And you know what he did when she took the stool next to him?

**He got up?** The thing drawled, sounding bored.

_He got up!_

**Oh,** it feigned, pretending to wipe a tear from its eye, **the** **_audacity._ **

Holly ignored it, choosing to stare holes into the back of Riddle’s head. She barely had to read the instructions off her potion’s textbook anymore — she can thank being half in love with the Half-Blood Prince for that. She fantasized plenty about what he’d look like. Was he tall, short? Did he have black or blonde hair? Was he still in Hogwarts or was he already dead? When Snape revealed that _he_ was the Half-Blood Prince, she cried for a week.

**I remember that.**

_You what?_

The thing just smiled.

“—staring at me?”

Holly jumped, meeting Riddle’s blank expression. “What?”

Riddle stirred his potion five times, clockwise, before turning back to face her. “Stop staring at me. It’s weird.”

“I wasn’t staring at you,” she scoffed, a little too loudly. Slughorn gave her a warning look from above his grading. “I _wasn’t.”_

Riddle didn’t look amused. “Stop.”

Holly curled her lip. “Or what?”

**-X-**

“You’re an idiot.” 

**You are.**

Holly picked at the boil on her forearm — it was big, red, and full of puss. Riddle threw a glug of flobberworm mucus into her potion when she turned to grab a vial, the prat. He was like Draco, ruining her potions and getting her in trouble. She didn’t expect to end up in the infirmary this early on.

“Anything to say for yourself?” Orion was sitting at the edge of her hospital bed, a little anxious, and not because she was covered in boils. He kept glancing at the doorway, at the other student’s asleep in their bed. 

Holly grinned. “I think he likes me.”

“You’re mental.”

Her grin widened. “Maybe.”

And maybe she really was. She was going to make Tom Riddle fall in love with her. The monster, Voldemort, You Know Who, He Who Must Not Be Named. She didn’t know if the boy could love, maybe he couldn’t, not when he was conceived by love potion, but Holly didn’t care. She’d make him fall for her whether he liked it or not.

“Why are you so obsessed with Riddle, anyway?”

Holly scrunched up her nose like she caught a bad scent. “I’m not obsessed.”

"Yes, you are."

The thing nodded. **Yes, you are.**

"No, I'm not." _Shut up._

Orion gave her a pitying look. “Holly.”

“Orion,” she said, her eyes almost bouncing in her skull with how hard she rolled them.

Orion groaned, wanting nothing more than to smack some sense into her. “You’re obsessed.”

“Obsessed with what?”

Both Holly and Orion choked, turning towards the doorway. McGonagall stood there with her hands crossed, a frown stretched across her stern features. She was the perfect picture of her older self.

Orion was the first to say anything, and it wasn’t pretty. “Shit.”

Minerva didn’t spare Orion a proper glance. “Language, Black.”


	6. Chapter 6

Orion smacked his lips and took a large swig from his cup, a bit of pumpkin juice running down the side of cheek. They were in their favorite abandoned classroom on the fifth floor again. Though, he didn’t like that McGonagall was also there. She refused to sit down and barely stepped into the room, instead, she stood at the doorway like she did at the infirmary, hands crossed over her chest. He wondered if she was as sour on the inside as she was on the outside.

He didn’t show it, but he was almost scared of her. McGonagall was smart, and not like how Holly was. Holly cared about studying as much as he cared about his sister’s love life, so not at all, unlike McGonagall, who he saw each time he entered the library. She sat with Gryffindors, debated against Ravenclaws, tutored Hufflepuffs, and avoided Slytherins.

Holly stood talking to her, her voice hushed, like they were sharing secrets and keeping him out of it. He wanted to know what she was saying, but he couldn’t read her lips, and he didn’t know any spells that could help him. She was going to explain their friendship, that’s what she said. Orion didn’t know what he was so worried about. He trusted Holly, and he’s known her a month. They told each other everything, and that’s more than he could say for half of his family. 

Orion _hated_ secrets. The Black family kept secrets like other Pureblood families collected rare artifacts. He knew Holly hid things, but he was patient, he could wait for her to tell him, and he could be patient with McGonagall too. That didn’t mean he had to like her, though. 

Setting his glass down, Orion pulled out a game of Exploding Snap. He shuffled the deck, made three piles, and slumped against the wall, avoiding the clump of cobwebs in the corner. He wished he was brave, and not to the point where he felt like he could conquer the world, but to the point where he didn’t have to let Holly talk for him. Like a Gryffindor. 

“Exploding Snap?”

Now, Orion wished McGonagall didn’t have a mouth to speak. “Problem?” Orion sneered.

He didn’t expect her to sit across from him, pick up a pile, and pull out her wand. She didn’t smile, didn’t smirk, didn’t frown. “Are we playing Classic or Patience?”

A stupid question. “Patience, of course.”

Her face broadened, like she found something funny, and she flipped over two of her cards — two Bowtruckles. She tapped her wand against the cards, stopping it from exploding. “Your turn.”

Orion stared. 

He already didn’t like her.

**-X-**

They were six rounds in, having switched to Bavarian rules, and Holly’s eyebrows were already singed. There was soot on her nose, and a quarter of the deck was gone. She’d only found two pairs in the last four rounds. There were three players to their game, Orion, McGonagall, and her, but it didn’t feel like Holly was part of it. Orion and Minerva barely exchanged a word, they focused on the cards in their hand and sometimes forgot when it was Holly’s turn. 

When it got around to her turn, Holly shuffled her stack into the remaining pile, choosing to watch rather than play. Orion glanced at her empty hand, pointing it out. “You aren’t going to play?”

Holly shrugged. “I’ll watch.”

He frowned, but didn’t move to put his cards away too. “Suit yourself.”

The game continued, and when Holly realized they wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon, she slipped out of the classroom and started to make her way to the library. She wasn’t going there to study, cause, really? She had seven years of knowledge to keep her busy without having to open up a book and figure out what the correct wand movement was for _Wingardium Leviosa._ Not to forget Hermione’s lectures.

Instead, Holly wanted an answer to a question she’s been asking since she became Holly Nikolaev. Who and _what_ was the thing? She tried asking, it ignored her, tried begging, it laughed at her, and even went as far to slip away from her parents and attempt to take the train to Chetham’s Library. Fania found her in Manchester attempting to bribe a cab driver with her father’s Russian sweets.

You would think Holly would at least know its name, but she couldn’t even come up with one herself before it threatened to rip out her tongue. The thing was invisible, seen only by her, but not without consequence. It wasn’t the guardian angel like she’d thought once upon a time. The thing laid next to her at night when all she could do was hold a pillow and cry and not know why, but it didn’t comfort her.

The thing was slimy, and it smelt like fish, even when she bathed it, covering it in berry- scented shampoo. It was intelligent, too, brilliant even, and if she were just a little dumber, she’d take anything it said as truth. 

**Anything?**

A couple of Slytherins turned the corner, and Holly ducked her head, covering her red and gold scarf with the hem of her cloak. She couldn’t afford trouble. _You have a way with words, is all._

The thing grinned, coiled in her messy locks. **That does sound like me.**

Holly rolled her eyes. _Don’t let it go to your head._

The library was empty except for a couple of Hufflepuffs, and a Ravenclaw that Holly just _knew_ was Luna Lovegood’s ancestor. She was hunched over the table, long strands of pale blonde hair falling over her face, but Holly could still see the corkscrew necklace, and if she looked closer, she could see the bags under her eyes too.

One of the Hufflepuff’s looked concerned. “What is it?”

Lovegood shot up, pushing so close to the Hufflepuff, Holly almost thought their lips would touch. “Nargles!”

Holly blinked. _What?_

**Oh, it’s her.**

_Again, what?_

The other Hufflepuff scrunched up her nose in disgust. “Oh, I hate Nargles! I just got these shoes!”

The blonde tilted her head to the side, a frown on her lips. “Do you not have your Narglecide necklaces?”

Both of the Hufflepuff’s shook their heads so violently they nearly knocked each other out. “No, we do! We do! We - we just... ” they trailed off, gesturing wildly with their hands. Holly was starting to feel like she walked into a secret meeting she wasn’t meant to see.

Lovegood nodded sagely, as if she actually understood the Hufflepuffs. “I would need a sickle or six to gather the—” she was caught off by one of the Hufflepuffs pulling out two sickles and a piece of lint from their coat pocket.

**Ivanna Lovegood, a con-artist.**

Holly moved further back into the library before she could hear anymore. Luna Lovegood’s ancestor was a swindler — holy _shit._ Did Luna know? Did Xenophilius? Was Loony Luna really just _loony?_ Holly shook her head, reading a couple titles off of random books to stop herself from overthinking. Luna believed that Nargles were real, and so would she, even if they were just the illusions of a con-woman.

But _still._ Holy shit.

**-X-**

The Monster Book of Monsters, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Dreadful Denizens of the Deep, Hairy Snout and Human Heart, Men Who Love Dragons Too Much, and Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland. Not a single book with a single creature that matched the thing’s description. It wasn’t a Lovecraftian beast, a ghoul, or a Boggart. She didn’t have a lead, not a single clue - was the thing even really there or was she just as crazy as Lovegood?

Holly groaned, dropping her head into her hands. She was getting a headache from all the reading she was doing, how did Hermione do it? Casting a quick _Tempus,_ Holly realized she’d been in the library for the last four hours. She wondered if McGonagall and Black were still playing?

 _Whatever,_ Holly thought. She had better things to worry about. Like what the thing might be. Like Riddle. The boy still hated her, and if she were being honest, she hated him too. It wasn’t easy going to class with someone who killed your parents in a past life — with someone who killed her too, in the end.

Pulling out Fania’s letter, Holly perused it, once, twice. “What you want to say, you can always show,” Holly whispered, pretending as if Mama was the one speaking. She wanted to get into character. “Show how?”

From between one of the shelves, a tattered, paper pamphlet fell out, landing between her and the chair next to her. Holly picked it up, reading: _Wicked and Pretty Plants_ by Selina Sapworthy. Some of the pages were ripped, but she could read most of the words. It was filled with illustrations of beautiful flowers, saplings, weeds, and even mushroom-like flowers.

“Convenient,” she said to no one in particular. 

There was one flower that caught her eye — Amorphophallus Titanum. It appeared as a large, green bulb covered in thick, thorny vines. It read if you tickle the chin of the Titanum, the thorns on the vines will blossom into small, scarlet flowers and hug the face of the person closest to it. Some of the top and bottom right corner of the page was scratched out, cutting out the last few words, but Holly wasn’t concerned.

It was perfect.

**A hugging plant?**

Holly grinned. _Everyone needs a hug sometimes._

**But Tom Riddle?**

_Especially him._

**-X-**

Holly wrote the name of the plant on her palm, misspelling _Amorphophallus._ She didn’t think Tom Riddle would care for something that was artificial — just a rose, a pansy, a stupid, little flower. Then again, she didn’t know _Tom_ , not as Dumbledore’s memories, not as the man in the diary, and not as Voldemort. 

She didn’t bother letting in Orion or Minerva on her plan. They thought she was obsessed, and maybe she was, but she had every reason to be, and it wasn’t like she could tell them why, either. Sometimes her memories tortured her so badly she wanted to scream, wanted to cry and tell someone why, but she had to bottle it up, had to hide it. Sometimes, she wondered if it’d be easier if she stayed dead.

Holly skipped dinner, mumbling an excuse to Orion and Minerva she couldn’t remember what about. She needed that plant. She also was going to need that cloak of invisibility if she was going to be sneaking around.

 **I knew I was rubbing off on you,** the thing purred. 

_It’s technically mine._

One of the first things Holly realized was the small differences between the Hogwarts then and now. It was scary how familiar yet foreign it was, the walls, the stairs, her bed, and even some of the teachers and students. There used to be seven greenhouses. Now there was one. Holly borrowed a trowel and a pair of gloves from the cubbies along the greenhouse wall. She brandished her wand, laying it on the palm of her hand like the arrow of a compass. 

" _Point Me.”_ Her wand rotated, pointing east, and Holly moved with it, inspecting over each raised garden bed. There were a few, undeveloped mandrakes, a black-stemmed plant with white flowers, and a patch of small, button-like mushrooms. Looking closer, she could see the hugging plant, covered in thick vines like in the illustration.

It was a little bigger than she pictured, about the size of a child’s head, but it was either the plant or back on her knees. She tugged on her gloves, dug out the hard dirt around the bulb, and uprooted it. She half-expected it to let out a wail, wiggle in her hands, and try to run away. It didn’t. Putting it into an empty flower pot, she smoothed down the dirt, her movements mechanic, like she’s done it a thousand times before. Except, she hasn’t, not as Holly Nikolaev. 

She’ll write Riddle a note, something to get his attention, make him read it and not throw it away and into the fire like all the other letters. Get him to realize she was sorry. If she was correct, this was her seventh letter to him, like how there used to be seven greenhouses, seven galleons for her wand, and seven Horcruxes.

Horcrux.

_Wait._

**-X-**

There was a flower pot on Riddle’s bedside — it was green with an envelope tied to it with a silver ribbon. Orion knew he should mind his own business, not put his nose into things he shouldn’t, but curiosity killed the cat, or whatever Holly would say, because he knew, without reservation, that stupid plant was from her.

He couldn’t begin to guess what species. Orion liked Herbology, but it wasn’t a subject he cared for, he knew the basics, and that was it.

He trusted Holly.

Except, Holly rushed things. She behaved as if she had no time. Salazar, most of her essays consisted of spelling errors, she ate too fast, and sometimes she walked ahead of him even when they were still talking. She wanted to keep moving, but sometimes, he wished she’d just slow down.

Orion checked to see that Riddle wasn’t pretending to be asleep, waiting to scare him. He liked scary things, but he didn’t like being scared. “Stupid,” he almost laughed — he really needed to teach Holly how to write with a quill, and to stop being such a Hufflepuff. 

_Riddle,_

_I’m sorry I ruined your robes. I believe the plant is called Arumph Titanium, or something. I wrote the name on my hand, but it smudged. So, I’m sorry about that too. Give the chin a tickle for me, okay? Everyone deserves a hug sometimes._

_Holly._

If Orion didn’t know Holly, he’d think her apology was shit, and honesty, it kind of was. She couldn’t remember the name of the plant, and her handwriting was atrocious. The apology was half-assed, and there was still some mud on the flower pot. 

Whatever. Orion fixed the pot and returned to his bed. He didn’t understand Holly’s obsession, but he wasn’t going to mess with it. 

Still, he thought about the plant’s name, played with the letters in his head, and sounded them out: _titan arum._ It was Latin, every Pureblood, and some Half-Bloods, were homeschooled in it — it served useful with pronunciation, understanding what spells meant, and the little things Muggleborns never bothered to learn.

Like that _titan arum_ meant _corpse flower._

Orion sat up again. He looked over at Riddle’s bedside, at the plant, and the green flower pot. Should he? Was it a mistake, another spelling error?

Orion paused — did he _care?_

A little, he guessed, but not for Riddle, throwing Holly’s envelope into his trunk. He still left a note for the Muggleborn — not a warning, just instructions, and a green flower pot.

_Tickle my chin._

**-X-**

Green was Riddle’s favorite colour, not because it represented Slytherin, but because the trees outside his window back at the orphanage were green. The same orphanage where everything was grey, but he could still look outside his window, and see _colour._ Billy was a bully and liked to tell him green wasn’t a creative color, but Riddle thought hanging his rabbit in the rafters was creative enough.

There was a flower pot on his bedside table. It was green, like the trees, like Billy’s face when he found his hanging rabbit. Except, Riddle didn't own a green flowerpot, and he didn't get presents, not as other children did. He got chewed-up sweets, mud-pies, and a dead snake under his pillow. He examined it closer, suspicious. There was a note: 

_Tickle my chin._

Stupid. Tom hated being told what to do, but he was curious, and as of now, what he wanted, he got. It could be a prank, a trick, a gag. He wasn’t a clown, but he’s used to being the butt of most jokes. Tom pulled out his wand — he kept it underneath his pillow when he slept, just in case — and casted a simple diagnostic spell. It took a couple of tries, his movements untrained, and pronunciation awful, but he knew the spell — he had the intent. 

_Herbivicus Charm._

Riddle racked his brain. Herbology, Herbology, _Herbology._ It was a gardening charm used to rapidly increase the growth rate of plants, right? No other spell was detected, but the thick vines reminded him of Devil’s Snare. Did he know a spell for fire? _Bluebell Flames._ A flame that singed clothes and plants, but could be rolled around in the palm of his hand like dough. Harmless, but useful. He also had a box of matches in his dresser. 

He shook his head — he was no _Muggle._ If he needed a flame, he could use his wand, but looking closer, he realised it wasn’t Devil’s Snare. He didn’t know what it was. Should he risk it? It was his. Someone gave it to _him_ , thought of _him._ If it was a trick —if it was a prank, it was fine.

 _He_ was fine.

Careful of the thorns, Riddle tickled the bulb’s chin.

And—

There was something thick, like sandpaper, on his face, and around his neck, before he could even notice. He could breathe, but his hands refused to move, and his feet weren’t listening, and he thought his favourite colour was green, but all he could see was red — red like the flower petal pushing beneath his eyelid.

 _Fuck_ , it burned. Why did it burn so much? Was he going to go blind? Was he going to die? No, stop. Shut _up._ He was a wizard, he couldn’t, he can’t _— no,_ he was fine. Tom was overreacting. His wand was still in his hand, and he was going to be the best wizard alive. He wasn’t a Muggle — a filthy _Mudblood._ He heard what the Slytherins liked to call him behind his back. He wasn’t stupid. Sometimes they even said it to his face.

Those ones, the brave ones, they belonged in Gryffindor.

Tom hated the colour red. The blue, cold flames that spewed from his wand were a delightful reminder of that.

**-X-**

Holly was feeling good. For once, on a Wednesday, and in the middle of the week, Holly was — dare she say it — _excited_ to go to class. Minerva and Orion were some-what friends, and she succeeded in getting Riddle an apology present.

Pulling herself out of bed, Holly casted a quick _Scourgify_. The distinct _thrum_ of water could be heard hitting the floor from inside the washroom and Holly didn't need to be told that Minerva was already in the shower. There was still grime underneath her nails, and her hair was rumpled, but Holly didn’t care for appearances, though Orion always got onto her about looking “like a lady.” 

Reluctantly, Holly pulled out a brush in an attempt to tame her main. It was always something with Orion. Her looks, her clothes, her attitude. What’s next?

**He’s behind you.**

Holly threw the brush at her wall. _I hate you._

Orion was in her room. She didn’t know _how_ , but he was here, in her room, and — what possessed him to sneak into the Gryffindor _dormitory?_ Before his family, before her, was his reputation. She faced him, his hair was tied back in a loose silver ribbon. It was pretty, like most things he wore. “How’d you get in here?”

He was exploring the room, now, touching everything he saw. He picked up Minerva’s diary, flipped through the pages, then set it back down. “The same way you got into mine.”

Holly scoffed. “What are you talking about?” Technically, she _didn’t_ go into the Slytherin dormitory. Not when she didn’t have her invisibility cloak, but knew someone, or some _thing_ , that could be invisible for her. Which doesn’t explain how Orion got in here.

“So, you don’t recognize this?” He held up the silver ribbon, the material dark against his pale fingers. It was the one she used to tie the envelope with. Not good. Very not good. Taking advantage of her silence, he continued: “Oh, Tom, I’m _so_ sorry I ruined your robes. I even got you this plant! Just tickle its chin cause _everyone_ deserves a hug.”

Was he really mocking her? “That’s private!”

Orion raised a brow. “So? You should be thanking me. I threw away that letter of yours. Your name would’ve been on Riddle’s murder weapon, if I didn’t.”

Holly’s good day wasn’t feeling so good anymore. “Riddle’s what?” The valve in the shower turned off, the water trickling to a stop. If Orion didn’t leave soon, they’d both be in trouble. “You know what,” Holly said, seizing Orion’s arm and dragging him towards the door. “Why don’t you tell me later?”

“I’m telling you now.”

Holly shook her head, pulling harder. “No, you aren’t. Get out!”

“Will you stop?” He swatted her off, like she was some _bug_ , and rubbed a hand down the arm she’d been pulling. “That hurts. You know that stupid plant you gave him? Rearrange the name, and you get _titan arum._ Do you know what that means? It’s Latin.”

“No,” Holly grumbled, making a face, and feeling like an absolute child while doing it. “Because unlike you, I didn’t have a private tutor to teach me a dead language growing up.”

“Well maybe,” Black practically hissed, “if you did, Riddle wouldn’t also be dead.”

“He’s not dead.”

He rolled his eyes. “Titan arum means _corpse flower,_ Holly. How could he not be dead.”

There was no way McGonagall wasn’t waiting at the door, listening in on their conversation. Holly was beginning to feel dizzy. “Well, if you knew that, why did you leave the plant there?”

 _Wait,_ something flared up in her throat. _Did you know?_

The thing smiled. **And if I did, cupcake?**

The washroom slammed open. “Would you knock it off? Classes start in five minutes,” Minerva snapped. “Riddle’s probably fine, but _you—”_ She stalked towards him, wand raised, but stopped half-way, as if getting close to him was something awful. “You’re not going to be fine if you stay here. This is a girl’s dormitory.”

“There’s more important things going on, McGonagall.”

Holly was not feeling very great. Not at all. Passing between them, Holly grabbed onto Orion’s arm and headed for the door again. 

Her first class was Herbology.

**-X-**

Oh.

There was a pocket of students standing outside the greenhouse, and the Headmaster — Headmaster Dippet, that was, was speaking to her Herbology professor, Herbert Beery. 

Holly grabbed the first shoulder in front of her. “Hey! What’s happening?”

The student looked vaguely horrified, but didn’t get to answer before Beery cleared his throat, raising his wand in a moment of silence. Holly wanted to dig a hole in the ground so wide it swallowed everyone. “Can anyone tell me the first rule you learn in Herbology?”

Some of the students murmured — usually Professor Beery challenged them with a tongue twister at the beginning of class. One of the girls in the front raised their hand, but without being called on, answered, anyway. “No complaining, the negativity ruins my groove?”

Beery coughed loudly. “Not quite, Ms. Abbott, but thank you. Anyone want to help her out?” No one raised their hand. “No? Fine, a student snuck into the greenhouse last night, and I want to know who. Was it you, Belby?”

Belby blinked slowly, clearly having not paid attention. Headmaster Dippet didn’t look very impressed. “That’s enough, Herbert. Harassing the poor boy isn’t going to help,” he chastised, running a wrinkled fist over his beard. “As Professor Beery said, a student broke into the school’s greenhouse last night. Their actions caused another student to end up in the hospital wing.”

His expression hardened. “I have my reasons to believe it was a first year. If anyone has something to say, or confess, you can come to my office after dinner. You’ll only get in more trouble if you don’t.”

 **To answer your question,** the thing said suddenly, **I was bored.**

 _You know what?_ Holly pivoted on her heel — she barely went to class as it was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't get as far as I wanted, but I hope you're enjoying my work so far :) Let me know what you think! Also the Amorphophallus Titanum is based on a real plant, though only in name.


End file.
